Screenwriting for a Global Market: Selling Your Scripts from Hollywood to Hong Kong 9780520937529

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Screenwriting for a Global Market

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Screenwriting for a Global Market Selling Your Scripts from Hollywood to Hong Kong

Andrew Horton Foreword by Bernard Gordon

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley

Los Angeles

London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2004 by the Regents of the University of California Part of the introduction was previously published as “Drink Locally and Write for the World” in the premiere issue of Screentalk, November/December 2000. Part of chapter 1 was previously published as “A Fish-Out-of-Water Story Every Time” in the July/August 2001 issue of Screentalk magazine. In chapter 3 the section entitled “New Zealand Meets the Balkans: Harry Sinclair’s The Price of Milk” appeared in a much-expanded version in the summer 2001 issue of Film Criticism. The sections on The Sopranos and No Man’s Land appeared in earlier forms in “The Sopranos: Chekhov and Sophocles Meet The Godfather,” Screentalk (January/February 2003): 22–23; and “Going for Both Laughter and Tears: The Craft of Mixing Humor and Pain,” Screentalk (September/October 2002): 60–61. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Horton, Andrew. Screenwriting for a global market : selling your scripts from Hollywood to Hong Kong / Andrew Horton : foreword by Bernard Gordon. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-23270-4 ( cloth : alk. paper).—ISBN 0-520-24021-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title. PN1996.H669 2004 808'.066791—dc21 2003006431

Manufactured in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

CONTENTS

Foreword by Bernard Gordon ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction: Drink Locally, Write Globally 1

part one. around the world in eighty ways Chapter 1. Have Laptop and Passport, Will Travel Personal Takes on Worldwide Screenwriting

15 Chapter 2. The Hollywood Influence on Worldwide Screenwriting and International/Independent Influences on Hollywood

30 Chapter 3. Eight Worldwide Projects Up Close

53

part two. a carnival of worldwide screenwriters Chapter 4. New Zealand: Moving Beyond a National Cinema Andrea Bosshard

97 Chapter 5. After Naked Men and Wedding Bells Screenwriting in the United Kingdom in a New Century Phil Parker

106 Chapter 6. Through a Mythic Lens Randy Redroad-Snapp

113 Chapter 7. Screenwriting (and Filmmaking) in the Balkans Slobodan Sijan

119 Chapter 8. American TV Writing Musings of a Global Storyteller Karen Hall

128 Chapter 9. Lew Hunter’s Worldwide Screenwriting 434 Lew Hunter

134 Chapter 10. Building a Screenplay: A Five-Act Paradigm, or, What Syd Field Didn’t Tell You Rachid Nougmanov

141

Chapter 11. “I Want Movies to Surprise, Stimulate, and Shock Audiences”: An Interview with Terry Gilliam Andrew Horton

152 Fade Out: Conclusions, New Beginnings

159

appendixes Appendix 1. Print Resources 167 Appendix 2. The Internet and Screenwriting: FADEIN.com 169 Appendix 3. Americans Reaching Out 172 Appendix 4. Hooking into Hollywood and Beyond from Overseas 180 Appendix 5. Finding an Agent, Producer, or Guardian Angel 184 Appendix 6. A Recipe for Worldwide Salmon Out of Water 189 Bibliography 193 List of Contributors 197 Index 199

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FOREWORD

When I hear the term global these days, I think of global capitalism and battles in the streets of Seattle, Quebec, Genoa, Ottawa, Evian, Athens, Geneva, and elsewhere. What is the connection between these and screenwriting around the world? They are precise opposites. Instead of exporting American hamburgers to the Champs-Elysées and the Piazza di Spagna or Disney Worlds to Tokyo, Paris, and so on, this is a book about ending the monopoly of Hollywood “hamburger” on the screens of the world and helping to develop wonderful local cultural cuisine not only for each country but for the entire world to enjoy. As a youngster in college in what was, startlingly, a different century (the 1930s!) my own interest in films was first stimulated by the wonderful selection then available in New York City. There were films from all over the world—the Soviet films of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko; the great German films, such as Metropolis and M; the wonderful French films, such as Poil de Carotte, The Baker’s Wife, Port of Shadows, and, of course, Renoir’s Grand Illusion. In those days there were also splendid films from smaller countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. So before I was halfway through my college courses, I knew that my life’s work had to be making films about real people and real social problems. It didn’t quite work out that way. ix

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But after pawning my Graflex for a sixteen-dollar hitch to California, I did get to Hollywood and was soon at work as a reader in the Paramount story department. I was sidetracked, though, by my interest in radical politics and my involvement in the trade union movement. As a result I was blacklisted after I had written only a couple of scripts for films produced at Universal. Time passed. I wrote for a slew of lowest-budget films under assumed names and for very meager pay. After years of this I suddenly obtained my passport when the Supreme Court finally agreed the State Department had no right denying permission to travel abroad to people who had committed no crimes. Suddenly I was in Europe . . . and free. Because of what now seems like a kind of miracle, I’d been hired by an American producer to write (under his name) a script for an adaptation of an English book, The Day of the Triffids, to be produced in Spain. On one of my first nights in Madrid, while cruising the main drag, I noticed a film whose title in Spanish meant nothing to me. But I saw on the lobby cards that it was a western with Rock Hudson and Julie Adams. It was The Lawless Breed, a film I had written at Universal almost ten years before and just prior to my blacklisting. I paid my pesetas and went in, not to see the film or listen to the dubbed Spanish but to see my name, my real name, so much larger than life, on the screen. In fascist Spain no one knew or cared that a film had been written by a blacklisted writer. All that mattered was that the public wanted to see another American film. When I walked along the Gran Via afterward, I noted that nine out of ten films playing were from America. Although this came as no great surprise, it made a very strong impression on me to see in living color—in flashing lights and on great posters that dominated the street—the total dominion of Hollywood in this faraway culture. I got a contract and worked on script after script, although none of them were the kind of thing I had dreamed of as a college kid. They did not constitute global screenwriting. They were Hollywood productions in every way except location, produced in Spain because labor and materials were cheaper and unions were nonexistent. But I was happy to be working, making Hollywood wages in hard dollars. Even so, some of my

Foreword / xi

original interest in really good films would surface and sneak into my work. On one occasion, while working with director Nicholas Ray on a tough script for 55 Days at Peking, we were left alone in Madrid by the producer for several weeks. Ray, it turned out, was almost as far left in his thinking as I. He had made his great breakthrough with the excellent atypical film, Rebel without a Cause. We got along famously, and I turned out a good chunk of script that pleased us both. There was endless pressure to meet a deadline, but when the producer finally turned up and read my pages, he literally tossed them into the wastebasket and lectured me bitterly on Hollywood filmmaking. “This film will have to be sold to a bunch of distributors who will come here from a dozen different countries to view it. Some of them won’t understand much English. All of them will come from countries where the audience knows no English. At best, the film will have to be dubbed into some native language. In some cases, it will have crummy subtitles. There will be places where the film is projected up on a sheet and someone stands in front of the audience and explains what is going on. They will not be able to understand or be at all interested in your sophisticated dialogue from a bunch of complicated characters. The buyers who come here will either see a lot of boom-boom action, or they won’t buy the film.” I liked my pay. I swallowed hard and went back to writing what I called an eastern western. Then there was the time I was asked to write a story about Krakatoa. I demurred, explaining that you couldn’t do a story about a volcanic explosion. There was no warning, no buildup. It happened suddenly, then was over. How do you have a beginning, middle, and end? The producer patiently explained that he was not interested in my academic theories; he needed twenty-five pages of story and could get millions to make a big picture about Krakatoa. If I would do this quickly, he would pay me $25,000 for twenty or thirty pages. I wrote the pages, accepted the money, then went on to work on a backbreaking script. But the money for a big international picture came through. That’s what mattered—the production money for a picture that would sell. When the picture was completed, the

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sales department called it Krakatoa, East of Java, even though it’s west of Java. East evidently sells better than west. Look for the buck. This kind of thing happened again and again, and I struggled to understand why so many of the films coming out of Hollywood were so bad, whereas, at least occasionally, a film that I could respect, even love, would come along from a small country with limited economic resources, a country like Denmark or Poland or Greece. I guess I was a pretty slow study, but the answer finally dawned on me. Hollywood films were made for the whole world; they had to play on the Gran Via and even where an interpreter stood before the sheet and explained the action to the audience. The films cost so much that half the gross had to come from abroad. And even at home in the States one couldn’t get distribution outside of a few art houses for anything but the blockbuster film. So, bottom line: our films had to be made for the lowest common denominator. If because of my own bitter experience I am unreservedly negative, I will certainly agree that in any arena as vast as Hollywood filmmaking there are fine writers, directors, and producers who strive mightily and with occasional success to create artistically and socially valuable films. But such work, if it reaches the screen, is rare indeed. Here it seems to me it is necessary and constructive to examine the generality and the social and economic base of the industry. Yes, there are films made “globally” that are trash, made for profit or whatever. But the ones we cherish, the ones this book is about, were not produced with the expectation that they would appeal to everyone everywhere. The budgets were modest, and the point was to express the creative impulse of the filmmaker; then, if the film made back its cost, that would be fine. The filmmaker could go on to make his or her next film. The hope of breaking into big-bucks U.S. distribution was virtually nil. As a result, for our audiences the prospects are also dismal. With financing, production, and distribution reserved for blockbusters of international appeal, we are reduced to choosing to see one or another adaptation of a comic-book epic. We are in danger of becoming the most provincial audience in the world.

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But all of this may be beginning to change. Read this book, and first of all join in the endless enthusiasm Andy Horton has for all the films he has seen and loved. You will feel you must see any of these films you have missed. And you will want to see once again the great films you have seen but perhaps failed to appreciate with the passion of a man like Horton. Read this book, and admire the courage and humor of a Native American who refuses to be stopped and makes films against all odds. Meet a wonderful woman from New Zealand who has no illusions about the cost of the struggle but who knows her life will not be complete unless she makes the kind of films she deems worthwhile. Again and again, this book is about people who live stimulating lives because they are doing what they know is important. And what else matters? I believe that unlike myself, starting in the 1930s, the young filmmakers today have a real chance to achieve their ambitious goals, not just of filmmaking but of good filmmaking, global filmmaking. For one thing, with digital shooting, taping, and editing the burdensome expense of making independent films has been reduced to a tiny fraction of what it once was. In my day even if you could get everyone on the set to work for nothing, you still had to face the enormous lab costs. For another, the need to get into the monopoly-owned theaters is no longer so pressing because with television, cable, and video the market for smaller, nonmainstream films is much greater. It is possible today to realize the cost of making your film from all the secondary markets. Read this book, and enjoy it. Read this book, and you, too, will want to become a global filmmaker. Bernard Gordon

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the support of Jeanne Hoffman Smith of Oklahoma City, who loves good films and helped finance the Worldwide Screenwriting Conference held at the University of Oklahoma during November 2000. I would also like to thank Dean Paul Bell of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, who helped cover expenses for several of the global screenwriters appearing at that conference. A hearty note of appreciation for the office staff at OU in Film and Video Studies: Jane Dye, the administrative assistant, and Natalie Goodman, the secretary, who have made my work in and out of the office easier and much more efficient while I worked on this project. Many of my colleagues at OU were also more helpful than they know in advice, assistance, and encouragement: Joanna Rapf, Misha Nedeljkovich, Michael Lee, Ben Alpers, Ben Keppel, Heidi Mau, John Springer, Gary Rhodes, Betty Robbins, Laura Gibbs, Richard Barney, J. Madison Davis, Gray Frederickson, Kathleen Welch, Tim Hudson, and Michael Alexander. I wish to thank the many screenwriters and readers who have contacted me over the past few years to express appreciation for my other books on screenwriting, Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay (2d ed. 1999) and Laughing Out Loud: Writing the Comedy-Centered Screenplay (2000), both xv

xvi / Acknowledgments

with the University of California Press. Your comments have helped me realize that a lot of what you were responding to was the fact that in each of these books I point to ways of writing that go beyond the so-called Hollywood formula, with examples chosen from around the world. I now realize that there is a natural progression in my writing about the craft of screenwriting that leads directly to this volume. A festive embrace to all the screenwriter/authors in this volume. They brought a truly global outlook to the whole project, and I cannot thank them enough for all I learned as well. Chapter 11, the interview with Terry Gilliam, was supposed to take place in London in person, but as a result of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, it was postponed to September 26 and conducted over the phone. I wish to thank Peter Langs of Los Angeles for setting up this interview and Gilliam’s secretary, Ella, for rescheduling the interview and finally “connecting” us. A special nod to all the screenwriting students I’ve come to know around the world since writing my last script book, Laughing Out Loud. I am speaking of students at the University of Oklahoma; at the International Academy of Broadcasting in Montreux, Switzerland; at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand; at the screenwriting workshops on the Greek Islands; and at other locations as well. I am grateful to the whole gang at the University of California Press, who have supported me through five previous tomes! Thanks to Eric Smoodin for originally suggesting this project and to Mary Francis and Rachel Berchten for helping me see the manuscript through to publication. A toast, as well, to those filmmakers and writers who have been so much a part of my life. “Hvala,” Srdjan Karanovic, Louis Todorovic, and Rajko Grlic; “Eufharisto,” Renos Haralambidis, Lakis Lazopoulos, Ellen Catsikeas, Elly Petrides, Petros Markaris, Katerina Zaracosta, and Klety Sotiriadou; “Goodonya,” Gaylene Preston, Russell Campbell, Costa Botes, Bill Manhire, Harry Sinclair, and Larry Parr; and a heartfelt “Thanks” to Lew Hunter, Chris Eyre, Barbara Hall, Ken Sherman, Paul Karon, Nick

Acknowledgments / xvii

Harding, Will and Mavis Manus, Carol Littleton, Evan and Eileen Lottman, Liz Weis, Louis Alvarez, Andy Kolker, Paul Stekler, John Tucker, Harriet and Sam Robbins, and Cathy Portuges. A congratulations to NYU script professor Ken Dancyger, who came out with his book Global Scriptwriting (Focal Press, 2001) literally the month I mailed my completed manuscript to the University of California Press. I did not know about Professor Dancyger’s book while mine was in progress, but I am very happy that his text also deals with the subject of the screenplay in a worldwide context and that we both cover different perspectives and aspects as opposed to duplicating the same territory. Thus I highly recommend his text to all interested in screenwriting across national and genre borders. I wish to say again how grateful I am to the contributors here, most of whom also attended a worldwide screenwriting conference I held at the University of Oklahoma during late 2000. I feel strongly that the carnivalesque spirit of friendship and festivity that characterized that gathering is reflected in these pages. Finally, my loving wife, Odette, and swiftly growing children, Sam and Caroline, deserve Oscars for putting up with all manner of craziness during the writing and putting together of this global project, for they have been involved in many of the travels and discussions in one country after another. Thanks so much, Horton home team!

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i n t ro du c t i o n

Drink Locally, Write Globally

Imagine this: you are an American living on a Greek island and working on a Norwegian screenplay that you must deliver to the director in Spain when finished. Sound like a new half-hour sitcom? Actually this is just one of many personal experiences I’ve had in recent years that led me to be a firm believer in “global screenwriting.” What exactly do I mean by global screenwriting? Well, for a number of reasons I’ll mention below, I think the term embraces an international view of screenwriting today. First, I am speaking of multinational and cross-cultural possibilities for writers everywhere. Yet I am also referring to the increased chances of your writing and making a film locally and getting it out to an exciting variety of places. In short, there are greater international opportunities for independent filmmakers than ever before. Two examples will get us started. Besides being Pythonesque, Terry Gilliam is nothing if not global. His brief bio in Monty Python Speaks! reads, “Born and raised in Minnesota and Los Angeles, Gilliam’s early careers as a magazine illustrator and advertising agency copywriter somehow pointed him towards creating animations for British television” (Morgan viii). Circle that one word somehow, and imagine this Yank abroad, who became an integral part of Monty Python and who kept his own vision as well, seeing through projects as varied as 1

2 / Introduction

Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And how exactly does one go from Minnesota, Los Angeles, and New York to becoming a hit in London? In Gilliam’s own words, “A fluke, really!” (Morgan 20). He met John Cleese briefly in New York once and sometime later looked him up in London. Cleese introduced him that week to a British producer who needed some drawing done for a show called We Have Ways of Making You Laugh. The rest is history, as my interview with him (chapter 11) demonstrates. Our second example is Jane Campion. Campion’s The Piano (1993) certainly “feels” very much like a New Zealand film, especially because of the striking scenery and the use of the Maori people throughout. But I see it as “global” because it is a French/Australian cofinanced production starring two American actors—Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel—and written and directed by Jane Campion, a New Zealander who has lived and worked out of Australia since her film-school days. Furthermore, as Campion has said in interviews, she meant the story to be a kind of twentiethcentury New Zealand version of an Emily Brontë novel such as Wuthering Heights. I begin by acknowledging that, yes, Hollywood still dominates most box office receipts everywhere. And the “classical narrative” technique of screenwriting that American cinema has developed over the years has not substantially changed. As Kristin Thompson notes in her excellent study Storytelling in the New Hollywood, the “basic techniques of progression, clarity and unity” have not changed in Hollywood storytelling since around 1918 (10). But increasingly, mainstream Hollywood films and classical Hollywood narrative technique are not the only games in town, in the nation, or even in the world. Screenwriting, like filmmaking itself, has truly gone global and more experimental in ways no one could have predicted, say, ten years ago. Could a large studio ever have come up with Being John Malkovich or a touching children-centered film such as the Iranian movies The White Balloon or A Time for Drunken Horses? Sundance Film Festival

Introduction / 3

codirector Geoffrey Gilmore states this clearly: “Independent filmmaking is still the vanguard that is the future of cinema. It’s a world that allows— even encourages—change” (Gilmore 20). Furthermore, did you know that roughly 25 percent of German television is written by Hollywood writers? Were you aware that many countries, including those of the European Union, have script development money through government-sponsored film funds that can include “foreign” writers as well as native screenwriters? And then there is the global impact of the Internet: of course, we all know that The Blair Witch Project was a hit in great part because of its Web site, which was set up a year before the film appeared. Screenwriting and the Internet thus become major topics for us all as well, as we will discuss. Finally, there is the sense in which so many films today are not examples of “Us against Them” (you supply who is “us” and who is “them” in your case). Rather, like Kiss of the Dragon or Chocolat they are truly a global combination, an international carnival of influences and interactions. Chocolat weighs in with an American screenplay (Robert Nelson Jacobs); a Swedish director (Lasse Hallström [My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?]); and French (Juliette Binoche), American (Johnny Depp), and British (Judi Dench) acting talent and is described as a British/American coproduction in French. Kiss of the Dragon, on the other hand, could be called a Hong Kong English-language kung fu film noir set in Paris, written by French screenwriters (Luc Besson and Mark Kamen, the writer of such scripts as the Karate Kid series and Lethal Weapon 4), starring the Chinese martial arts expert/actor Jet Li and American actress Bridget Fonda, and financed with French, as well as American, monies. Viva the carnival of multiple influences such films suggest! Screenwriting for a Global Market builds on my previous experience and writings to more clearly focus on both the influence of Hollywood abroad and screenwriting from a worldwide perspective, a viewpoint that has not been covered in any thorough detail before. The book is divided into two

4 / Introduction

parts. In the first section I write about global screenwriting from my perspective and experience, whereas in part 2 I draw on the wisdom and experiences of screenwriters from countries as varied as England, New Zealand, and Kazakhstan, as well as the former Yugoslavia and the United States. I have also included several appendices in which I recommend some specific channels through which you may try breaking into a global market with your screenwriting. Technically, this is not directly a “how to” book, as many screenwriting books claim to be. Rather, Screenwriting for a Global Market is dedicated to expanding horizons, visions, perspectives, and possibilities in screenwriting. At the same time, this feast of voices provides useful and practical information on how you can go further yourself as a screenwriter, no matter where you live. Let’s start with five commandments of worldwide screenwriting. FIVE COMMANDMENTS OF WORLDWIDE SCREENWRITING

1. Drink locally.

My emphasis is on a global perspective to writing, but everything begins at home, wherever and whatever that is. This is the “write what you know” advice aspiring writers have always received, and what better place do you know than your locale? That goes for the internal locales of your spirit, as well as your postal address. A friend, Milcho Manchevski, from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, went to college in the States and started working very successfully as a producer at MTV while writing “Hollywood genre” scripts on the side. I read many of these scripts and tried to suggest how adding certain elements could make them hot items in Los Angeles. I encouraged him, as did others, to write something “closer to home” and to his roots. When he finally went back home after years of being away, he found a country torn by deep nationalistic and religious divisions. The Bosnian War was still going on up the coast from Macedonia, and Milcho was deeply moved by what he saw, felt, and learned “at home.”

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He sat down and swiftly wrote the script that became the Oscarnominated “Best Foreign Film” for 1994, Before the Rain. A production cofinanced by British, French, and Macedonian investors, what could be more global? It was, therefore, the drinking of the local waters of his imagination that paid off so powerfully, not the effort to tap into the fast foods of Hollywood. 2. Travel widely and even live for an extended period abroad.

If you are American, go abroad. If you are Korean, go to Europe. If you are French, try New Zealand or India. The point is simple: living in a foreign land gives you new insights, perspectives, and possibilities. Consider also how many good films, from Casablanca and Il Postino to The Piano and Witness, are “fish out of water” stories, that is, stories of characters in unfamiliar landscapes and cultures. If you personally have had such an experience, think of the pleasure and rewards of writing scripts that cross national boundaries. Gray Frederickson, whose producing credits include all three Godfather films, Apocalypse Now, and about twenty-five other films, firmly believes in this command. He says loud and clear that he really got his start by living, working, and studying in Switzerland years ago. That experience allowed him to be in touch with a number of European film folk, especially Italians. So he wound up helping a number of Italian productions that wanted to shoot in America. He then launched into a career in Hollywood based on experiences that began “over there.” 3. Write with a partner from another country.

Many happy projects for me have been such “transnational” efforts. To date I have written with Yugoslav, Hungarian, Norwegian, Greek, Russian, British, and New Zealand script partners, and I have a great idea for an Antarctic script but have not yet found an Antarctic partner! Quite simply one of the profound joys of “global screenwriting” is the chance to go beyond your own world. It is a pleasure not only to travel abroad but to

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really begin to get to know another country and culture. Screenwriting offers this opportunity more often than many realize. I offer just one example here. One of my latest projects is a New Zealand “jazz sheep-farm comedy” I wrote last year with a New Zealand friend, Russell Campbell. We met on my first visit to New Zealand several years ago, and a friendship grew as I taught screenwriting as a visiting professor at Victoria University in Wellington, where Russell teaches film studies and film production, especially documentary filmmaking. When the New Zealand Film Commission that year had a competition for comic screenplay ideas, we decided to enter “for the hell of it” and actually won a grant to develop our idea with the help of a local producer. We were even funded for a second draft, and the script is now awaiting final funding for production. But the question is, What was it like to bring two completely different cultural backgrounds to a project? The answer is simple: a whole carnival of possibilities opens up because we have such different areas of expertise and experience. In our case, for the project that came to be titled Make a Joyful Noise, Russell began with an actual incident that had occurred several years before: a Russian cruise ship had crashed on the South Island of New Zealand, and the Russians had no money to get back home; so the New Zealand government wound up footing the bill to get the Russian and Thai and Pakistani sailors and crew members home. Of course, any time screenwriters work in pairs, they can enjoy “playing off ” each other and building on ideas springing from either writer. Yet in cross-cultural situations the possibilities increase. In this case I built on my twenty years of living in New Orleans to add to this “true story” a “what if ” element. What if on that Russian cruise ship there was a New Orleans jazz band family—African American—who had not been paid by the Russians and were thus very broke. And what if, when the ship crashed, they did not want to deal with government officials for certain legal reasons of the past, so that to get back to New Orleans they wound up getting jobs on a sheep farm in order to raise some cash for tickets home.

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Yes, a “fish out of water” tale with a lot of music too, of course! But with this simple setup we had a lot of fun developing the New Orleans and the New Zealand sheep-farm characters. Russell could make sure I was not falling into hopeless stereotypes on the New Zealand front, and my knowledge of New Orleans characters and music helped the script become more, we think, than a slapstick Scary Movie or Nutty Professor II script. Finally, I would add that not only did we have a lot of fun working together on Make a Joyful Noise but we learned a lot, too. Neither of us had spent time on a sheep farm, for instance. So we did a week of “research,” traveling the South Island and visiting farms, talking with farmers and families, and getting to know the landscape and the customs. This is just one of my own stories. Multiply this times the creation of many memorable films that in large part are unforgettable because several different “nations” worked on the script, and my “commandment” becomes even clearer. Award-winning Greek director Theo Angelopoulos has worked on many of his scripts, such as The Beekeeper (1986), Landscape in the Mist (1988), The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991), Ulysses’ Gaze (1995), and Eternity and a Day (1998), with Italian screenwriter Tonino Guerra, who wrote scripts for Antonioni and for Andrei Tarkovski. And although Shakespeare in Love was a Hollywood-backed production, with an original script by American writer Marc Norman, the spirit and texture of the screenplay gained much from Norman’s collaboration with BritishCzech playwright Tom Stoppard. Finally, would Monty Python be quite as “Pythonesque” if the Pythons didn’t have that one Yank, Terry Gilliam, on board?

4. Increase your worldwide contacts and film knowledge by attending at least one international film festival a year.

Film festivals play a critical role in keeping much of global cinema alive. Only by attending Toronto, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Seattle,

8 / Introduction

Chicago, Palm Springs, Telluride, AFI Los Angeles, and other international festivals in North America, or the festivals in Cannes, London, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, and other film centers, can you begin to catch on to what a rich variety of talents exist in the world, even if many of them never make it into the multiplex cinemas of your neighborhoods. The point is simply that attending such a festival should be built into your schedule for your own education, growth, and satisfaction as a writer. This goes for making contacts too. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen friendships struck up and business deals begun and concluded through contacts made on the festival circuit. Of course, this assumes you get over being shy and introduce yourself to that Bulgarian director whose film that you saw at 9 a.m. knocked you out, or to that Australian documentary filmmaker whose stirring film made you ready to move to the Outback. Think, too, of the practical side of attending: a yearly visit to at least one festival is cheaper than going to the fifteen to twenty countries where the films you enjoyed are made. For a complete list of festivals check out Steven Gaydos’s The Variety Guide to Film Festivals (New York: Perigree Books, 1998). 5. Use the Internet in ways that truly help you as a writer.

No one needs a lecture on why the “net” is important these days. Yet I simply want to reiterate how “worldwide” the net is and how instantly so for script research, for staying in touch, and for letting the world know about your work. Appendix 2 provides a number of relevant Web sites for filmoriented contacts and research. Email is also a valuable resource, not only for personal correspondence but also for email “trees” of addresses to consult for getting out announcements. I use email, for instance, to get the word out to a lot of writers about seminars such as my Greek island script seminars. Script chat groups are also multiplying by the minute. And for research the ability to look up film and script facts and information, as well as to download entire scripts, is crucial.

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Web sites matter, too, and if you are not inclined to take the computer courses needed to build and maintain your own Web site, there have to be those local college or even high school geniuses living down the street who can help you out for a few dollars a month! Finally, consider how the Internet is devouring short films and building careers overnight. Almost everyone has seen the six-minute film George Lucas in Love, made as a class assignment at the University of Southern California by then student Joe Nussbaum, who is now under contract to make a feature because of such instant global exposure and recognition. This film was one of Amazon.com’s best-selling items during the summer of 2000. So take advantage of the worldwide reality and increasing potential of the Internet for writers and filmmakers alike. You can literally live in South Africa or Kansas, Hong Kong or Alberta, and reach millions from your home with your film, your script, your projects.

FINAL TAKE: PULP FICTION MEETS BOSNIA IN LONDON

Allow me a final take on worldwide screenwriting today as we get started. If you haven’t seen Beautiful People (1999), the debut feature by BosnianBritish filmmaker Jasmin Dizdar (a Trimark home-video release in the United States), check it out in your local video shop. If I were pitching the concept for this film, which Dizdar wrote as well as directed, I would say, “Well, it’s Pulp Fiction meets Bosnia but in London.” In short, humor, horror, and humanity mix in strange and wonderful ways in this imaginative tale told in eight interwoven stories as refugees from the Bosnian War try to adapt to their newly adopted home: Britain. Conversely, it is about the British people’s efforts to adjust to this new wave of immigrants. Dizdar clearly “drank locally” as he told the story he knew: what is it like to be a war immigrant in London? But even on the plot and character levels this is a global story for today. And the fact that it has played to solid box office and now video rental receipts around Europe and Amer-

10 / Introduction

ica is healthy testimony to the increasing possibilities of global screenwriting. Since their birth over a century ago, movies have traveled the world making people laugh and cry, with sound and without, with subtitles or dubbed into “home” languages. This book is dedicated to such a transnational form of connecting with people everywhere through storytelling that can be seen and heard around the world. Now, more than ever, such a craft is something to enjoy and celebrate! May we FADE IN and FADE OUT with passion, humor, imagination, and a joy of life. I say this with sincerity and perhaps even a sense of urgency, given that this book was completed shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on New York and Washington, D.C. Storytelling is clearly one way we can reach out to a worldwide community in hopes of brighter days ahead. Good films not only help us survive; they are one way we triumph and thrive.

pa rt 0 n e

Around the World in Eighty Ways

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For my money Homer is still the best screenwriter of them all, even if he was blind and lived twenty-seven hundred years before cinema began. He told gripping stories of war and peace, of love and hate, with close-ups of individuals and long shots framing casts of thousands. There were special effects, monsters, storms at sea, and gods and goddesses behind the scenes working their agendas as well. Who could ask for more? Add one more important element, which relates directly to this book: Homer “borrowed” tales from many other countries, especially Phoenicia, and through his own craft made them “Greek.” If that isn’t global storytelling, then I don’t know what is. There are two simple ideas in this book: we can all be better writers if we take in influences from other cultures in addition to those in our own. And there is a rich variety of possibilities for screenwriters to work in cinemas other than those of their own native countries. That’s it! On the notion of cross-fertilization, realize this basic observation: many of the plot-driven and special effects–driven Hollywood films that are beginning to fail in record numbers could have been much more successful if they had “something else” to them that scripts from other countries often have, be that character development, texture, atmosphere, engaging subplots, or sociopolitical dimensions. Homer understood that very well. Of course, the reverse is also true: many of the films outside the United States that fail to find even a local audience could benefit from the best of American script storytelling traditions. Screenwriting is definitely a two-way street. Chapters 1 and 2 explore these fascinating cross currents, and chapter 3 provides a close-up of specific “global” scripts/films.

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chapter 1

Have Laptop and Passport, Will Travel Personal Takes on Worldwide Screenwriting

I didn’t know it at the time, but my birth as a worldwide screenwriter really dates back to my youth, when I saw Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless for the first time. As a young American high school student, I had never seen a Hollywood film where the main character—Jean-Paul Belmondo in this case—simply turned to us (the camera!) and talked as if he knew we were there and could communicate with him. Not only that, I was impressed that he clearly was imitating Humphrey Bogart (there was even a shot of Belmondo standing by a Bogart poster in Paris) and thus playing at being an American gangster as a young Frenchman in 1950s Paris. I came away from that screening recognizing that here was a way to build character and tell stories that didn’t follow the “rules” I had grown up with, the rules I had learned watching Hollywood films. It was exciting that we couldn’t tell what would happen next. Anyone who could just turn and speak to “me” and shoot his stolen revolver into the sky for the hell of it was capable of just about anything, and, by extension, so was the Frenchman making the film. Of course, it took me years to catch on to the irony of a young American being inspired by a French-Swiss filmmaker who himself was inspired by American cinema of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. But in that early screening 15

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of Breathless I was beginning to “go global” in my interests, outlook, intentions. I knew then that although I enjoyed Hollywood films, these California products were not always as exciting as stories I was starting to discover from other lands. Suddenly I took studying French more seriously! I firmly believe that the best things in life are often accidents of which you take advantage. That’s certainly been true of my relationship to screenwriting. As a college English major during the Vietnam War days at Hamilton College in upstate New York, I was taught that the thing to do was still to write “the Great American Novel.” But after graduation, when I accepted a one-year teaching position in Greece, I gave the novel a shot and failed miserably.

BEGINNINGS IN GREECE, NEW ORLEANS, AND NEW YORK

Greece won me over, however. In perhaps more ways than I was ever aware of at the time, I was changing. Living abroad opened my eyes and adjusted my perspective on many issues, especially because the military junta had taken over the government, and I had a taste of what a dictatorship was like. But I also discovered I was seeing more movies than reading books by that time, and I was impressed with what I saw from France and Czechoslovakia, as well as from England, Hungary, Poland, Greece, and, yes, America, as the so-called American new wave was beginning to appear. This was the beginning of what would become for me the driving desire to write screenplays. In Greece I realized something else, too, as I signed on for a second year of teaching so that I could explore the islands more and begin to do some writing. I learned that travel, and living and possibly working abroad, would continue to be important to me. After all, as the son of a U.S. Air Force lawyer, I had lived with my family in England for three years when I was a kid and in Georgia, Virginia, and finally Amherst, Massachusetts, for all of my high school years. Travel was in my blood. Several years later, after completing a graduate degree at the University of Illinois in Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies and then re-

Personal Takes on Screenwriting / 17

turning to teach again in Greece for several more years, I actually began to take screenwriting seriously. I had already tried my hand at an adaptation just to begin to feel comfortable trying to “see” a film on a pile of white pages, taking on Mark Twain’s short novel Pudd’nhead Wilson. Then in Greece one summer I visited a writer friend, Will Manus, at his home on the island of Rhodes, and the two of us decided to work on a script together. In fact, we hatched a good half dozen ideas, which we turned into brief treatments of two to three pages each. We finally settled on a Greek setting for a revenge drama about a Greek American woman from Chicago with several children who returns to Greece to avenge the murder of her father in his isolated mountain village many years past. The script was a pleasure to write, especially since Will brought a strong story sense to the project, and I enjoyed making it “cinematic” and developing character. Yes, at the time I remember both Will and I were aware we were being “global,” thinking that perhaps the script could be done by a “Hollywood” company, as was Michael Cacoyannis’s Zorba the Greek (Twentieth Century Fox). But we also realized that through various connections we were developing, a European or even Greek production was possible. Imagine what a boost it was both to our egos and to my desire to become even more serious about screenwriting when the script was optioned by Jean Doumanian, who at the time was producing Saturday Night Live on television and had already begun producing for Woody Allen. Yes, and one-year option agreements and checks continued for several years after that, as the script went through the usual rewriting and reshaping process. I was hooked, and it was a “non-American” story that had done it. But backtrack a few years to 1978. That year I was on a national grant to study comedy and thus had the chance to take a screenwriting class— the only one I have ever taken—at the New School in New York. The course wasn’t very useful, but the group taking the class was invaluable. We would meet after class each week in one of the local pubs and critique each other’s work and spur each other on to try new ideas. That “circle of positive but honest feedback” proved to be exactly what I needed to plunge in on an original script and see what would happen.

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I soon moved to New Orleans to teach at the University of New Orleans and to enjoy the music, food, festivity, and sense of carnival of that city that feels so much like a separate country unto itself. My sense of global writing was developing because New Orleans did not exactly seem to be part of the United States, yet no one asked for a passport! Several script ideas began to take shape, but the one that came to the forefront had to do with young couples in their twenties trying to work out personal relationships while living in contemporary New Orleans, complete with carnival, corrupt politics, and, yes, great music. In fact, working on that script taught me that if you have one strong image or moment that simply won’t leave you alone, you have a script if you “open up” what that moment is all about. I had one image from my first Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, where I was living at the time. That particular Mardi Gras afternoon I was standing on a friend’s balcony admiring the crowded streets and the wild variety of costumes when suddenly from my “high angle” point of view, I could see a large penis costume, “walking” horizontally, rather than vertically, down the street, propelled by four sets of feet. It was hilarious and won the immediate respect of the crowd that cheered it and then became hushed when a New Orleans police car started coming up the other direction. Then the inevitable happened: the police and the penis collided and the penis shot a urine colored liquid all over the squad car. The police turned on the windshield wipers and backed down the street, pushed, seemingly, by the phallic costume and the four people inside it. Well, that image just wouldn’t go away. So the script became a tale of two couples, each trying to work through a variety of personal things, and this Mardi Gras event became the literal “climax” of the story. I had a rough draft of this project when I moved to New York in 1980 to head up the film department at Brooklyn College. And a subsequent rewrite with my friend Will Manus brought out a subplot about crooked politics that dovetailed well with the story of our four characters. This script, too, was optioned for years by several producers but, despite much enthusiasm, ran into the inevitable “objection” that “Hollywood doesn’t

Personal Takes on Screenwriting / 19

do giant penises.” There were always suggestions, of course. “What about a giant carrot or ear of corn?” End of conversation and, ultimately, option agreements. Even George Roy Hill, who was directing The World According to Garp at the time, enjoyed the script but threw up his hands about the carnivalesque conclusion.

THE BELGRADE CONNECTION

During this time my European travels at conferences and such led me to visit newly made friends in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Although by that time I had lived in Greece five years and had driven through Yugoslavia, like so many tourists headed to Greece and so many Greeks headed to the rest of Europe, I had never really seen this country so rich in its diversity of peoples and landscapes. That summer I met Srdjan Karanovic in Belgrade and also became aware of the wonderful wealth of cinematic talent that was then living in Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Skopje, and elsewhere in the then peaceful Yugoslavia. Srdjan had by that time already won many international awards for films such as Petria’s Wreath and The Fragrance of Wild Flowers and had a strong home theatrical audience as well. What I discovered that summer in Belgrade, as I watched films at the Yugoslav film office, was that the offbeat sense of story, humor, and character development I saw in the films of Dusan Makavejev, Goran Paskaljevic, Emir Kusturica, Lordan Zafranovic, Aleksandar Petrovic, Goran Markovic, and others, including Karanovic, was much closer to my own developing sense of these elements than what traditional Hollywood films offered. My emerging global “tendencies” became even more clear when Karanovic arrived in the United States not long after on a Fulbright, visiting film schools in New York and Los Angeles. He said he had a film he wanted to make about a young American woman who winds up in Belgrade and falls in love with two Yugoslav men who happen to be best friends. Karanovic had a rough idea for the film, and he had the title: Something in Between. We discussed the idea of working together on writ-

20 / Personal Takes on Screenwriting

ing the script and considered the logistic difficulties of getting the job done between New York and Belgrade in those days before email. Fortunately, he got funding to come back to New York, so in the autumn of 1981 we wrote the script, sitting side by side for hours as I typed on an old portable Royal typewriter and he smoked and sipped wine. My fiancée, Odette, was very understanding of our long hours, especially given that I was still teaching and doing my administrative work at Brooklyn College. Those were very happy days, for Srdjan and I realized immediately that the script got better and better because of the two very different “national” backgrounds and experiences we brought to the project. For him to have written the character of an American woman would have resulted in a heap of clichés about being “American.” And for me to capture the flavor of Belgrade culture at that time would have been impossible. But by working together, knowing that we wanted to do a social romantic comedy with a subplot of a “war game,” we were able to come up with a carnival of ideas, scenes, dialogues, and situations because we had the three main characters so clearly in mind. Srdjan put it well: “The title is Something in Between because everything in Yugoslavia is ‘In Between’: in between Europe and Asia, in between the past and the present, in between communism and capitalism. The story must be Jules and Jim meets My Darling Clementine, that is, a John Ford/François Truffaut Balkan Western comedy!” And so it was. Unlike Hollywood, where even a “hot” script can take a few years to reach the screen, Belgrade in those days worked swiftly. Srdjan polished the script and began preproduction, but he involved me as screenwriter in the process from the beginning. I was able to help him find the lead actress through a Hollywood casting friend, for instance. And once the cameras began to roll, I was invited to Belgrade to help “adjust” dialogue and scenes as they were being shot. According to many of my script-writing Hollywood friends who have done well, seldom are they on hand to help tighten or polish a line here or a scene there. But in Belgrade in 1982 I had

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the pleasure of rising and writing at 6 a.m., having the scene translated as the crew gathered, and then shooting that very scene by 10 a.m. Later that evening, at one of Belgrade’s fine restaurants, we could discuss what had happened and go over plans for the next day, sometimes with the actress or one of the lead Yugoslav actors present. Put simply, I became spoiled very quickly. Why? Because it was the tradition in Yugoslavia to take the writer seriously. For all the talk in Hollywood about how important the screenplay is, the reality is that projects are still basically producer driven, director driven, and star driven. Something in Between opened to large audiences and many awards in Yugoslavia in 1983, with sales to numerous countries. Happily, my wife and I got to enjoy the enthusiasm for the film because I received a film Fulbright award to Belgrade for the fall term of 1983. We arrived during the summer and got to attend the Yugoslav film festival in Pula, on the Adriatic coast up near the Italian border. It was a thrill to see what we had written on the screen for the first time. Not only that, but the screening was in a Roman amphitheater that seated more than six thousand. I immediately learned another global lesson: lines written in English in Brooklyn, when translated and performed well in Serbo-Croatian, can make thousands laugh, including several hundred gypsies sitting on blankets at the front of the amphitheater. As I watched my first film on the screen, I couldn’t have been happier. The Variety critic perhaps summed up our “global” intentions best when he wrote that Karanovic was “far and away the leading intellectual filmmaker in Yugoslavia” and went on to say, “The pic is shot in English, but in view of the nature of the theme, the jumbled English and half baked SerboCroatian works as a meeting of two cultures in the land where East meets West. . . . The fun is the dialogue itself!” (“Something in Between,” 20). Yugoslavia also has a festival of screenwriting held at a resort town in Serbia, so, as a beginning global screenwriter, I had yet another “first” experience: young teens knocking on our door to ask for autographs from the cowriter of Something in Between, which walked off with the “Best Dialogue” award from the festival that year. But perhaps the greatest honor I ex-

22 / Personal Takes on Screenwriting

perienced was realizing how much the concept of “something in between” became part of the lingo of the day, as even television newscasters would say, “Things are not really good or bad, just ‘something in between’ ”! My learning curve as an American screenwriter abroad (still with a typewriter in those pre-laptop days!) didn’t stop there. While we were working on the script, Srdjan made it clear we needed to come up with more story than would fit into one film. Why? Because Yugoslavia at the time often imitated a practice that Germany is credited with inventing: write and then shoot both a film and a television miniseries at the same time. So roughly nine months after the theatrical release of Something in Between in the cinemas, a five-part series (hour-long episodes) played on national television. Yes, we in the States have had films such as M*A*S*H and Clueless become television series, and television shows spawn films, from Batman to Mission: Impossible. But we’ve never caught on to all of the pleasures (and profits) that arise from having the same cast and the same scenes but with more back story, subplots, elaboration! In the film, for example, we had a punk teen son of one of the Yugoslav men who talks about playing in a punk band, but you never hear the band. In the television series, however, the band plays. For all of the crossover talent in American film and television, the divisions are still separate enough that such a “combo” idea has not caught on, despite my frequent suggestion of such actions to my network friends. Screenwriting is, as you can see, so much the central part of such a concept that once again the writer in such a situation has an enormous challenge to write her or his story “long” and “short,” thinking of both the big screen and the small home screen.

FROM BRAD PITT TO BOSNIA AND BACK

I have covered my first film in detail because it became so important to my whole approach to writing and working and has remained so ever since. And I must say I owe a lot of what I have picked up to my director friend Srdjan Karanovic. He truly enjoys every aspect of the filmmaking process, writes his own scripts as well, and is a professional through and through,

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even during difficult parts of the process. That he has also taught at several American universities, including Boston University, Wesleyan, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Oklahoma, as well as at the University of Belgrade, says much about his desire and ability to “give something back” to students. Srdjan and I have worked on a number of other scripts, almost all with a worldwide core. One, Upside Down, was what I still think is a very funny cross-cultural “green card” romantic comedy set in Houston, Texas, between an American woman and a Serbian man. There was only one large problem that is, of course, every screenwriter’s nightmare. I finished the final draft of the script the very week that Peter Weir’s Green Card (1990) with Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell opened. Of course our script is better (modesty, modesty!), but . . . they got there first, and the similarities are too glaring to be ignored. Later, a chance connection with Olympia Dukakis led her to ask, “Why don’t you write something for me?” We wrote No Hard Feelings, about a, yes, Greek American woman “past middle age” living in the bayous of Louisiana, who decides, after her husband’s death, to choose a husband from Serbia through an international video matchmaking service. This script got finished as the war in Bosnia began, so any mention of Serbia became impossible. Once again, the message of “timing, timing, timing” struck home. In the meantime, however, I worked on other projects, including another “worldwide script” for an independent film company in Chicago. The owners were Yugoslavs from Chicago who had lined up Bozidar Nikolic, one of Yugoslavia’s best cinematographers, to direct a low-budget romantic comedy/drama to be shot on the beautiful Dalmatian coast below Dubrovnik. But they needed a strong rewrite, and they needed some American actors. This was the summer of 1988, and I signed on as a script doctor but wound up writing more than 50 percent of the project; so I became cowriter on Dark Side of the Sun. My friend Marion Dougherty, who headed up casting at Warner Brothers, put us on to one of her assistants, Amanda Mackey, and in no time we had a lot of resumes and head

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shots to wade through. The key actor had to be a young twenty-something American fellow, and for that role we had many resumes from then unknowns with funny names like River Phoenix and Brad Pitt. To make a long story short, Brad got the job, along with Cheryl Pollak as the female lead and Guy Boyd as the young man’s father, and shooting began that fall on the coast of Montenegro. Once more I was fortunate to be invited to spend some time on the set and fine-tune some scenes. This time I was in awe of the breathtaking landscape and enjoyed hanging out with Brad and Cheryl, who were enjoying this chance to be somewhere other than California! This was Brad’s first starring feature role, preceding his “bit” part as the hitchhiker in Thelma and Louise. We were all impressed with the way he filled out the role of a young American with a rare skin disease that literally kept him in the “dark” all his life until he meets a traveling American actress played by Cheryl Pollak. Instead of pure comedy the romance turns to drama as Brad sheds his darkness for a few days of pure happiness and then dies. The shooting went well, but postproduction financing became a problem, followed by the real shooting in the Balkans, which made any completion impossible. Meanwhile Brad’s career took off, and the film was forgotten, somewhere in the vaults in Belgrade, until the Bosnian War ended. The film was finally released in the States as a video release in 1998 (CBS FOX Video) with People magazine commenting, “Brad Pitt is Rebel Cool,” and Inside Edition remarking, “Brad Pitt’s star quality comes shining through.” Once more as a writer I had found that getting to know the actors and having a chance to fine-tune is invaluable. In this case Brad showed a certain playfulness and sweetness or vulnerability that was most pleasing, and I was able to build on that. Of course, some fine moments were happenstance that the director seized too. At one point the script says Brad strips and plunges into the sea for the first time in his life, delighting in sun and surf. Well, on the day they shot the scene a playful dolphin that all the locals knew was in the bay, and, on the director’s suggestion, Brad swam with the dolphin, taking playful head butts by the friendly creature. Tim-

Personal Takes on Screenwriting / 25

ing—which included the Bosnian War—was against this project too, but we all could tell Brad was a young man on his way to Hollywood, Tibet, and other locales. For years I worked with Karanovic on several drafts of “Virgina,” a script close to his heart. Based on a true custom in the region and other parts of the world that if you had too many daughters, you could “declare” one a boy, the story is actually a recasting of one particular story that hit the Yugoslav papers after World War II. A certain “Virgina” (the name suggesting “virgin,” of course) ran away from her mountain home during the war, as the Nazis were fighting fiercely in the region, and joined Tito’s partisans, becoming a hero herself. Finally, however, she was wounded, and the doctors made a discovery that led to her honorable discharge. In real life she became a wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother living in a small Serbian town. I worked on a version of the script that was, like the real story, set during World War II, but we added an American soldier who winds up meeting her and helps to save her near the end of the war. So much of screenwriting is about research, and I did a lot in order to write this script. I learned, for instance, that the “cross-gender” phenomenon is a cultural practice going both ways in different parts of the world. In the Pacific Islands there are cultures where boys are raised as girls for the same reason: not enough women to do the work women usually do. And I learned what a recent book, Antonia Young’s Women Who Become Men, makes clear: the practice can be voluntary as well. Our story and Young’s book both grow out of the Balkan regions of Albania and surrounding territories. But in Karanovic’s story the girl/boy has no choice. Stephan, as she is called, must be a man, complete with the taping down of breasts and dressing, working, swearing, drinking, and smoking like a man. The script went through several rewrites by Srdjan, especially because as tensions mounted in Yugoslavia as it began to break apart—Slovenia going one way and Croatia another—the possibility of a budget large enough to shoot “World War II” became impossible. Srdjan wisely chose to move the story to the turn of the century in a remote area between Croatia and

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Bosnia and keep the cast small. I did not get to work on the final draft of this script or on the set since security became very tight as the mere shooting of the film involved daily cooperation among Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and United Nations troops and authorities. The film was literally completed about one week before the Bosnian War began, with the mountains of Bosnia featured as part of the landscape in the film. Virgina opened in 1991, winning numerous awards, including a European Oscar—a Felix—for the young girl, who had never appeared in a film before. Once again the importance of global work struck home to me, for the film outsold Terminator 2 in Yugoslavia that year, making it clear to me that a “home country” film can compete with Hollywood if you have a story people want to see.

WORLDWIDE LAUGHTER: GREECE, HUNGARY, AND NORWAY

Believe it or not, I actually have several 100 percent American stories in mind that I would like to write. Yet it has been my experience—which I have thoroughly enjoyed and never resisted—that “global” scripts find me, or I find them, or both. Once more, we are speaking of that carnivalesque blend of chance meetings and accidental opportunities and being awake and ready to grab them. And I count myself lucky that each project has been a lot of fun, something my Hollywood-based screenwriting friends find rare. Each has also turned out to be a cross-cultural “global” comedy of one flavor or another, depending on the countries involved and my director/producers. Ironically, a number of them have also included characters or scenes from New Orleans, the City That Care Forgot (as the locals refer to their beloved city), which was my home for twenty years. Without going into detail, I have had the pleasure of working on a Norwegian script about a Norwegian girl and her New Orleans musician father serving time in prison, a New Zealand jazz sheep-farm comedy, a Hungarian ensemble dance romantic comedy, and a Russian screwball romantic project about a Russian

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tractor mechanic in New Orleans during Mardi Gras to fix the Russian tractors that pull the floats each year. I’ve been paid for each, and although none of the above is yet on the screen, I have no doubts that most will eventually get there. Why cross-cultural comedies? I have no simple answer. But if I were pressed, I would say the obvious: I enjoy watching and reading good comedies because comedy is often more profound than tragedy, as I have tried to explaininmybookLaughingOutLoud:WritingtheComedy-CenteredScreenplay. When people are laughing, their guard is down! More than that, however, cross-cultural comedy suggests that despite differences of race, color, religion, politics, geography, and nationality, our humanity binds us and bringsustogether,afactthatshouldbereiterated,celebrated,andsupported. I will close these personal observations from my worldwide script odysseys with one last example, a Greek project entitled Six Stages of a Dead Man. Several years ago I was with my family on the Greek island of Kea, where we go every summer, quite literally completing the Norwegian script mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. A young Greek American screenwriting friend, Ellen Catsikeas, got in touch with me at that time, saying that the leading comedian of Greece, Lakis Lazopoulos, wanted to see me about working on a feature comedy. We arranged a supper meeting on the one remaining evening we would be in Athens before returning to New Orleans, where I would begin a new academic year. I was honored to meet Lakis, for I had long been an admirer of his work on the Greek stage in what we can easily call the Greek vaudeville circuit. And I had seen him in his extremely popular television show, in which, once a week, he played about fifteen different Greek characters—male and female—from all walks of life, from bumbling sailors to rich old dames. He also played the most memorable version of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata that I can remember, often traveling the show around Greece as summer outdoor theater in the ancient tradition. Like Jerry Seinfeld, Lakis had suddenly quit doing his show at the moment it was the most popular show around and for the same reason: he did not want to watch his popularity drop season by season. Lakis also felt the

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need to “grow” as a performer and director by moving on to feature films. “But nobody in Greece can write decent feature-length comedy,” he said over an excellent meal that night. And he did not trust his own writing since he was very aware his strength was in “skit” or “sketch” comedy: making his audience laugh for four to eight minutes at a time, depending on the skit. The trick would be finding the character and structure to go for ninety minutes. I was immediately interested. But there was one major problem. “I have to return to New Orleans tomorrow to start teaching again,” I explained. How could we work together before Christmas or the next summer? “No problem!” was Lakis’s answer. “I will come to New Orleans!” And he did. Thus, for two magical weeks we sat by the computer by day and took in the New Orleans musical and culinary scene by night. The result was a solid and very comic first draft of Six Stages of a Dead Man, an anarchistic ensemble farce about an apartment building in Athens that is slowly collapsing while we, the viewers, get to know the inhabitants, especially a young man—the Lakis character—who works in a ground-level shop that is both a funeral home and a lottery shop. Our character has two goals: the immediate one is to fulfill his task in the funeral business by getting the six-hundred-pound corpse of a deceased millionaire down the apartment building from the penthouse, where the millionaire lived; the second goal is to someday go to New Orleans, where his father, a failed musician, almost married and settled down with the love of his life, a lovely black storyteller. Lakis had a producer from the beginning, so expenses were paid for his trip and my writing and for a rewrite in Athens the week before Christmas. That week in Athens, as Santas speaking Greek wandered around the shops and as I woke each morning in Lakis’s studio apartment to write, I realized how much I enjoyed this whole carnival I call global screenwriting. Here was a story that bridged Greek and New Orleans cultures, a story I was lucky enough to write in both locations while forming new friendships along the way. And the writing was absolutely a sharing of abilities and a proof that in screenwriting, especially with two dif-

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ferent cultures involved, one and one is not two but almost always immeasurably more. But what about Los Angeles? I enjoy Los Angeles and wind up there several times a year on business and to see friends. And given a different shuffling of the deck, perhaps I would be Los Angeles–based and working on purely American stories for screens large and small. That has not been my life, however. As this example with Lakis suggests, global writing is too deeply rooted in my screenwriting soul to be dismissed or discouraged. And the laptop computer, plus email, makes it all so much easier. Thus I keep my passport renewed and am ready to consider the three script possibilities that have developed abroad while I have been working on this book!

chapter 2

The Hollywood Influence on Worldwide Screenwriting and International/Independent Influences on Hollywood

Two very different worlds exist in screenwriting. French writer/director Robert Bresson suggests a European mind-set when he says, “Be the first to see what you see as you see it” (25), and Max Adams, a young survivor of the Hollywood system, expresses the Hollywood mentality when he reflects, “Agents don’t buy scripts. Studios do” (9). Bresson focuses on how to write and make the film you want to make. Adams offers “practical” info on how to deal with “the system.” The truth is that most of us, as screenwriters, are caught somewhere in between. No matter which country we live and work in, we have stories we want to tell and write, and then we have to sell them and get them on the screen. That’s a clear worldwide situation that unites us all. This chapter is not about how a French, South African, Swiss, or Japanese screenwriter should copy Hollywood formulas or attempt to make a blockbuster by adding car chases, special effects, or digital animation. Rather, what I focus on here is how good Hollywood films through the years have not only told stories that “work” as entertainment but, I argue, have also demonstrated lasting values—either comedic or dramatic or something in be30

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tween—that linger in our memories long after we have left the theater. I am equally concerned here with how much Hollywood stands to learn from screenwriters in other countries who go beyond the plot-heavy special-effects tales that even Hollywood is beginning to realize often crash at the box office and with the critics. Note, for instance, that in many countries there is not the rather strict division we see in the United States between leading writers of fiction/drama/poetry and those who write and make films. Let us consider the opening pages of one Hollywood and one European script to get us started on these two different universes of screenwriting. Alan Ball’s Oscar-winning original script (2000) for American Beauty starts off this way: fade in: int. fitts house—ricky’s bedroom—night. On video: jane burnham lies in bed, wearing a tank top. She’s sixteen, with dark, intense eyes.

jane: I need a father who’s a role model, not some horny geek-boy who’s gonna spray his shorts whenever I bring a girlfriend home from school. (Snorts.) What a lame-o. Somebody really should put him out of his misery. Her mind wanders for a beat.

ricky (off camera): Want me to kill him for you? Jane looks up at us and sits up.

jane: (deadpan) Yeah, would you? fade to black. fade in: ext. robin hood trail—early morning. We’re flying above suburban America. descending slowly toward a tree lined street.

lester (voice over): My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood. This is my street. This . . . is my life. I’m forty-two years old. In less than a year, I’ll be dead.

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int. burnham house—master bedroom—continuous. We’re looking down at a king-sized bed from overhead: lester burnham lies sleeping amidst expensive bed linens, face down, wearing pajamas. An irritating alarm clock rings. Lester gropes blindly to shut it off. lester (voice over): Of course I don’t know that yet. This is American storytelling at its best, certainly. We have drama and crime suggested right off the bat, but the tone is also ironic and, yes, funny. And that combination of humor and laughter continues throughout in this darkly etched dramatic comedy or comic drama, depending on how you wish to describe such a mixed-genre story. American Beauty is also very “American” in that we already know the main character and at least two stories: Lester’s tale, told in voice over, which clues us to the whole film noir tradition of storytelling in fiction and on film; and Jane and Ricky’s intertwined narrative, which sets us up for a maybe “yes”/maybe “no” involvement in Lester’s death. Put simply, Alan Ball has our attention; and, consciously or unconsciously, we are already going to work to track these tales and characters as they work toward their involved conclusions. Put another way, American Beauty is Aristotelian in its “classical” setup of a beginning, middle, and end. Screenwriting has not always been so clear, logical, and unified in tales told in other nations. Let’s turn to France for our contrasting opening. Here is page 1 of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1968). Godard claimed that he often wrote scripts on napkins at cafes on the way to the set and that his goal in filmmaking was to get back to “zero,” that is, to destroy all expectations, formulas, traditions. He was also often quoted as saying films should have a beginning, middle, and end but not necessarily in that order. As he noted in an interview in 1970, “The problem which has long preoccupied me, but which I don’t worry about while shooting, is: why one shot instead of another?” (“What Is to Be Done?” 14). Or as film scholar David Wills notes, Godard’s passion “was to turn the film screen into a black-

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board, an interface for active debate rather than a medium for passive consumption” (Wills 8). Pierrot le Fou concerns Ferdinand (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo), who runs away from marriage, and all other obligations in Paris, with his children’s babysitter (Anna Karina). The film is an on-the-road comic crime romantic drama. In other words, it’s a carnival of possibilities, and, like American Beauty, it constantly winks at us (yes, characters look into the camera and address us directly). pierrot le fou titles: On a black screen appear a number of red letter A’s seemingly placed at random. The letters of the alphabet, in order, appear at brief intervals, all red, except for the line of the main title which is blue. Harsh, sinister music is heard. Finally, the full titles, in blue, can be read:

jean-paul belmondo et anna karina dans pierrot le fou un film de jean-luc godard ferdinand is heard before the title is complete, and continues over the first four shots. Medium close-up of a young girl, facing the camera, playing tennis. Long-shot from the edge of the tennis court. Two girls are knocking about. It is a beautiful summer day. Medium shot of ferdinand, who is browsing among some bookstands outside a bookstore called Les Meilleurs Des Mondes. He is carrying a large comic book under his arm. A wide river at dusk, with the lights of the city reflecting on the water; behind the buildings in the distance, the sky is deep red from the setting sun.

ferdinand, off: ‘After he had reached the age of fifty, Velázquez no longer painted anything concrete and precise. He drifted through the material world, penetrating it, as the air and the dusk. In the shimmering of the shadows, he caught unawares the nuances of color which he transformed into

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the invisible heart of his symphony of silence. . . . His only experience of the world was those mysterious copulations which united those forms and tones with a secret but inevitable movement, which no convulsion or cataclysm could ever interrupt or impede. Space reigned supreme. . . . It was as if some tenuous radiation, gliding over the surfaces, imbued itself of their visible emanations, modeling them and endowing them with form, carrying elsewhere a perfume, like an echo, which would thus be dispersed like an imponderable dusk, over all the surrounding planes. . . . ’

ferdinand is in his bath reading from a paperback history of art, a cigarette arrogantly dangling from his lips. (Godard 23–24) Almost nothing could be more unlike a traditional American script than this opening page of Godard’s film. Imagine the fun of submitting such a script to a major Hollywood studio! “Sorry, Sir. We appreciate you considering our studio but . . .” First off, Godard makes no effort to write in “standard script format.” True, this screenplay was written more than thirty years ago, before screenwriters everywhere started adhering to “format” and loading up with script programs such as FINAL DRAFT and MOVIE MAGIC SCREENWRITER. Certainly to read the published scripts of “new wave” directors from the 1950s and 1960s is to find works that look more like short stories (Ingmar Bergman’s scripts) or stage plays (Harold Pinter’s scripts) in terms of format. But we have to respect that Godard purposely wanted his script to look different from Hollywood scripts on the page. The “experimental” nature of this opening page—the blackboard effect mentioned above—is also obvious. We don’t really know what’s going on. Letters of the alphabet appear randomly, young girls play tennis, and a man reads out loud from his bathtub about the Spanish painter Velázquez, who began to focus on the nonmaterial world around him. At this point we have no idea what the story will be or who our bathtub figure (Jean-Paul Belmondo) really is. And we certainly can’t begin to guess, as we can in American Beauty, whether a murder will take place or whether a man’s daughter will become involved with a teenage boy from the house next door.

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I have, of course, taken a rather extreme case to represent “non-Hollywood.” We should all be aware, for instance, that in the past few years the gap between “foreign” and “Hollywood” storytelling has narrowed. This phenomenon is occurring for the simple reason that filmmakers everywhere have tried and are continuing to try to “copy” Hollywood formulas and formats to make higher box office profits. The reality, however, is that most of these films become quite bland “middle of the road” works that lose any individualizing characteristics of the home country yet fail to successfully employ classical Hollywood techniques and motifs. Thus, my purpose in starting off with two such divergent scripts is to suggest, as this whole book does, that we stand to learn much from both perspectives. The best Hollywood filmmakers have always told vivid stories with strong characters. And “foreign films” have often surprised and challenged us by daring to be different in form and style, as well as content. Think, for instance, in recent years what impact Australian, Iranian, and Chinese films have made on audiences (and, by extension, writers) everywhere. Once more, vive la différence! How strongly does Hollywood product continue to dominate foreign markets? Let’s take one week in December 2000 and choose the top ten box office films of five countries. Variety, Dec. 25–31, 2000, 13, reported the following: germany 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Meet the Parents Charlie’s Angels The Grinch Dinosaur Schule (German) The Cell Billy Elliot (British) Reindeer Games Seven Days to Live Small Time Crooks

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japan 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Dinosaur Vertical Limit What Lies Beneath Charlie’s Angels The Exorcist (reissue) 15 Year Old: Gakko IV Space Cowboys Frequency Titus Shin Jingnaki Tatakai (Japanese) france

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Dinosaur Small Time Crooks The Grinch Charlie’s Angels Le Roi danse (French) Red Planet Ça ira mieux demain (French) Scary Movie In the Mood for Love The Way of the Gun australia

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Chicken Run (British/American) Charlie’s Angels Unbreakable The Grinch Red Planet The Dish What Lies Beneath Billy Elliot (British)

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9. Snatch (British) 10. Autumn in New York u.k. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

The Grinch Charlie’s Angels 102 Dalmatians What Lies Beneath Red Planet The Art of War Urban Legends: Final Cut Billy Elliot (British) Small Time Crooks Coyote Ugly

Nothing could be more straightforward than such statistics: Hollywood has long dominated the world film market, and it shows no signs of slowing down. But box office sales of American films abroad are not the most important indication of Hollywood’s influence. Another Variety report (Dec. 25–31, 2000, 1–2) shows the breakdown of the $2.8 billion in foreign income from American films abroad: Video sales

25%

Box office intake

28%

TV sales

47%

What people watch on television around the world, therefore, is even more strongly influenced by Hollywood’s storytelling on film, tape, and digital disks. Of course, this means that many writers—American and foreign— head for Los Angeles each year hoping to sell a script to Spielberg or Lucas or even to Miramax or New Line Pictures. But for independent filmmakers and screenwriters working in countries everywhere, moving

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to Hollywood shouldn’t be an overriding goal. Write the film you want to write in your country or region of the United States. Yet do your homework, too, so that you are aware of what Hollywood, at its best, has given the world in terms of screenwriting, storytelling, and, thus, filmmaking. In a moment I will lay out five essentials of the Hollywood screenplay. In no way is my list meant to be a thorough “history of Hollywood screenwriting.” Call it a brief overview, a refresher glance, or, hopefully, a perspective that may have some angles you hadn’t fully recognized. Before embarking on our survey, however, let’s acknowledge how “worldwide” Hollywood writers have often been over the years. Billy Wilder gave us some of our favorite “American” comic scripts, including Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch, and Kiss Me Stupid, together with such fine dramas as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and The Apartment. But he was an Austro-Hungarian by birth and upbringing. Similarly, Milos Forman, as director but also with some script input, is responsible for such successful adaptations as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ragtime, and Amadeus; but Prague, Czechoslovakia, was his home before he moved to the States, even though, as critic David Thomson points out, the influences on his Czech films such as The Loves of a Blonde and Black Peter include “the Italian neorealists, Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson” (Thomson 259). Thus we hear a global voice once again. And, as we will see in the next chapter, there are many more examples of such an international presence in Hollywood.

WHAT HOLLYWOOD HAS GIVEN THE WORLD: “ENTERTAINMENT,” YES, BUT SOMETHING ELSE AS WELL

It’s important for all screenwriters to understand that the traditional way Hollywood has told stories has not changed since 1918. Many “how to” script books that focus almost entirely on Hollywood screenwriting fail to actually identify this historical tradition and its clear dimensions. Kristin

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Thompson accurately describes the “classical narrative technique” Hollywood has developed in her study Storytelling in the New Hollywood. Her overall point is that “the most basic principle of the Hollywood cinema is that a narrative should consist of a chain of causes and effects that is easy for the spectator to follow. This clarity of comprehension is basic to all our other responses to films, particularly emotional ones” (10). Concisely stated, that cause-effect strategy has been and remains the rule of the Hollywood screenplay. Thompson is even more specific in identifying three key elements within this chain of causes and effects: progression, clarity, and unity. Her thesis is that despite variations on these elements, as seen in everything from Pulp Fiction to Alien, the new Hollywood films are examples of “modern classicism” rather than new movements or breaks with classical Hollywood storytelling. Our goal in this book is the same as Thompson’s: not to value global screenwriting over Hollywood writing or vice versa but to appreciate and make use of the accomplishments of each. As Thompson notes, “There is much to be valued in the Hollywood system. The best examples are complex and well-crafted” (352). For our brief survey below we will select one “typical” American classic: John Ford’s Oscar-winning film, and the top grossing film of all he had made until then, The Quiet Man (1952). It was scripted by Frank Nugent, from a story by Maurice Walsh, and starred John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, and a host of great Irish character actors (Barry Fitzgerald, Victor McLaglen, Jack MacGowran, and others). Of course, it is the “John Ford–John Wayne” label that has much to do with the immediate name recognition. But equally important from our way of thinking is Frank Nugent, who scripted five of Ford’s best films: Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), and The Searchers (1956). Finally, there is another reason for spotlighting such a Hollywood film as our example in this survey: The Quiet Man is in a real sense global. It’s an Irish story, first of all. And instead of shooting on the back lot in Culver City or in the San Fernando Valley, Ford, whose parents came from Ire-

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land, where he often returned, loaded up the cast and crew (as well as members of his family and John Wayne’s children) and shot on location in the village of Innisfree, in western Ireland. Ford also cast a bevy of fine Irish actors to bring out the best of Nugent’s robust and finely tuned dialogue. Thus, Ford himself was much like the main character, Sean, who wished to get back in touch with his Irish roots (the major difference being that Ford was not born in Ireland). In fact, Ford claims that at birth he was named Sean (Gallagher 277). Hollywood films have offered the world, among many elements, the following five: 1. Goal-oriented characters we understand and “follow”

The main characters in Hollywood films have a job to do: they may be, for instance, on a quest or fighting a deadline or trying to escape something or someone. But we, the audience, know clearly, and very early on, who our characters are and what it is they are after, even though part of good character development has always involved creating tension between what the characters think they want and what they “really” need. In The Quiet Man John Wayne is Sean Thornton, an American exboxer returning to his native Ireland to try and put behind him an accidental death he caused in the ring during one fight. Nugent has shaded the role of Sean so that the John Wayne persona can shine through but with an Irish flavor for this extremely Irish story. Put simply, we are witnessing the star system as it crosses with screenwriting, for knowing that Sean would be played by John Wayne was a distinct advantage for screenwriter Nugent in coming up with a figure who would immediately have the audience’s attention. Thus, like the Wayne persona in so many other Ford and Wayne films, Sean is, as the script states, “a big man with a light tread, an easy smile and the gift of silence” (McBride 32). In the best Hollywood tradition such immediate recognition helps sell tickets, but note that Nugent’s script shades the character so that while all

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seems pleasant and easygoing on the surface of this Irish tale, the darker shades of the death in the ring give an edge to what otherwise might be only a stereotypic Irish romantic farce. Adding to this Sean’s goal—to bury the past—suggests he is a “good man,” with decent values. He has been psychologically hurt by the damage he has caused. Thus we root for him and follow him on his homecoming odyssey, which turns into a romance when he meets strong-willed Kate Danaher (O’Hara). Put another way, Nugent has masterfully written characters that balance between “types” we easily recognize and individuals developed enough and shaded to have complex personal traits as well. 2. A unifying plot that is easy to follow

When a film like Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2001) fragments plot conventions so that no one can really tell what the “story” is, we know we have a film that is purposely going beyond the constraints of classical Hollywood storytelling. As even the New York Times noted, “Memento is a brilliant feat of rug pulling, sure to delight fans of movies like The Usual Suspects and Pi” (Scott B4). The classical Hollywood film, in contrast, has a clear plot with subplots that contribute to the overall effect of the main story being told. For The Quiet Man we have already noted that Nugent serves us a homecoming tale that begins as a character’s attempt to “get away” from his troubling American past. This troubling past evolves into a lifeaffirming present as Sean’s odyssey turns into an Irish version of an American screwball romantic comedy with elements of the British Bard’s Taming of the Shrew. One commentator sums up the delightful plot this way: “a peaceful American returns to his native village, but can only find peace there by bullying his wife and brawling with her brother; until then he will feel himself an outsider, confused in his manhood, a gentleman surrounded by peasants and clergy” (Gallagher 278). Frank Nugent has given richness and depth to a simple plot outline.

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For the original tale is quite dark—the boxer who has defeated himself through violence in the ring returning to Ireland. And conversely, if the writer had focused only on romantic comedy, the film would be easily forgotten soon after our leaving the cinema. But the combination of the two stories helps give the plot an edge that makes it memorable. Conversely, we can probably all think of foreign films that may have had powerful characters or individual moments but that had no story we could make sense of to pull us through the film. 3. A sense of pacing, most often with the “clock ticking”

Most American films do “move along.” Film scholar David Bordwell has noted that Hollywood films have always been economical and kept stories flowing at a pace that seldom “drags.” And think how many films have plots built around the ticking clock. Either some terrible disaster is about to happen or is actually in progress (after all, we know the Titanic is sinking), or some crucial “deadline” must be met. Half the fun of watching Buster Keaton in Seven Chances (1925) is knowing that he will receive a fortune if he marries by seven that evening. That one condition is enough plot to set up an almost endless series of gags and to keep all moving at a frantic pace, leading to an ending in which literally hundreds of women chase poor Buster to the chapel. The pace of films, moreover, has increased dramatically since the 1950s. Bordwell observes that the average Hollywood film today consists of between three thousand and four thousand or more individual shots as compared to roughly four hundred to six hundred before the 1960s (Bordwell). Such a statistic explains in part the MTV-like feel of so many recent films, which seem more like television commercials (speaking of fast pacing!) than ninety-to-one-hundred-minute stories on film. But certainly part of what has made Hollywood so popular around the world is that writers, directors, and producers have understood the value of keeping a relatively brisk pace going throughout a film.

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Scenes in The Quiet Man, of course, are longer than in the post-1960 films Bordwell speaks about. But Nugent and John Ford move Sean’s homecoming and romance right along. And there is a rhythm between quiet scenes and noisy ones. We know, unconsciously if not consciously, that a one-on-one moment between Wayne and O’Hara will be followed by a boisterous pub or street scene. Recently, Hollywood films have frequently begun creeping past the two-hour running time, often with much negative feedback from critics and audiences. Yet traditionally, most Hollywood movies have weighed in at between 90 and 110 minutes, a fact that in and of itself demands a steady pace. 4. Unambiguous endings

It’s not so much that Hollywood endings have to be “happy” as that they must definitely be resolved. Rick must show that love means learning to let go by letting his true love, Ilsa, leave with her husband, Victor, at the end of Casablanca. And in Some Like It Hot, after more than an hour and a half of pretending to be a woman, the Jack Lemmon character must declare to the millionaire who wishes to marry him that he is a man, thus eliciting one of the most memorable lines in film history: “Nobody’s perfect.” Hollywood films do not allow us to leave the theater confused, depressed, or angry. Tearful, yes, but dazed and confused, never. The Quiet Man leaves us with a large smile. Sean not only wins his feisty Irish love’s hand in marriage, but he also wins the respect of her brother and the Irish community after one rollicking public fistfight (everyone including the local clergy bet money on the outcome, with the bets going roughly fifty/fifty). At issue had been the matter of a dowry payment the brother did not want to make. When Sean receives the dowry at last, he proves himself a man of selfless character when he burns the money, with Maureen O’Hara’s helping consent. What Frank Nugent manages to pull off in such an ending goes beyond the conventional closure we expect in a romantic comedy in which

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the guy gets the girl. We also recognize that Sean has managed to triumph over and grow past the pain of his personal past from the boxing death he caused. Finally, the film gives us the Hollywood message of acceptance as Sean is now clearly part of the community, and we witness Protestants and Catholics accepting each other, a message that history has not borne out. But audiences everywhere have always accepted Hollywood films— even when they are semirealistic—almost as fairy tales. Ford went to great lengths to make The Quiet Man quite authentic in sound, look, and depiction of Irish customs and actions. But the carnivalesque romantic ending dramatizes a wish fulfillment for a land that continues to see political and religious hatred and intolerance divide communities and even families.

5. Genre formulas

It’s a Hollywood rule of thumb that customers are more likely to line up if they have an idea what kind of film they are going to see. Thus the whole concept of film genres. Hollywood screenwriters know which genres they are writing within and the formulas if not rules of those genres. Hollywood has given the world not only movie stars, who can be followed from film to film, but types of films—horror, thriller, drama, western, screwball comedy, and more—to draw audiences back into the dark again and again. John Ford called The Quiet Man “a love story, a mature love story,” and “a very sexy story” (Gallagher 280). I have already strongly hinted that part of Frank Nugent’s accomplishment in The Quiet Man was to take a basically dramatic story of a failed boxer returning home and turn it into a triumphant romantic comedy. Put simply, Nugent found the right Hollywood genre for the project. Footnote this to recognize how recent Hollywood films have succeeded by mixing traditional genres. Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction crosses film noir with the buddy film, and Crazy/Beautiful blends (not always successfully) family melodrama and romantic comedy.

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AND NOW FOR WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES CAN OFFER HOLLYWOOD WRITERS

Many American students of screenwriting have had little exposure to anything outside Hollywood filmmaking. Thus this section is directed primarily at American writers, with an open invitation to “expose yourselves” to films from the “foreign” shelf in your local video store if there are no cinemas or universities nearby carrying alternatives to mainline studio films. Consider also the disappointing performance of so many recent Hollywood films, a fact that has begun to send some questions around the production offices about what scripts get green lighted and why in Los Angeles. A very practical way of looking at global and independent influence on the American market is to take the example of the American film distribution company Sony Pictures Classics, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2001. In May of that year Variety published a list of the top ten moneymakers for the “new” company (Grove 35): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) Howard’s End (1992) Lone Star (1996) The Spanish Prisoner (1998) All about My Mother (1999) Pollock (2000) Run Lola Run (1999) The Opposite of Sex (1998) Indochine (1992) Central Station (1998)

125 million dollars 26 million 12 million 9.8 million 8.3 million 8 million 7.3 million 5.9 million 5.6 million 5.6 million

Three are American independent films—Lone Star, Pollock, and The Opposite of Sex—but except for The Spanish Prisoner the rest are all “foreign” films that did well in the States. Let me suggest five directions such scripts can help us grow in as writers on our own projects:

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1. Don’t be afraid of difficult or controversial subject matter.

Simon Beaufoy’s witty script for The Full Monty (1997) takes on unemployment in the north of England, not a subject that seems destined to bring in over $200 million worldwide at the box office. Yet Beaufoy builds an ensemble comedy full of rounded characters who make us care about their plight. Similarly, Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful (1997) turned a father-son story about the Holocaust into a touching comedy and romance through a finely honed script and excellent performances. On the independent front Ed Harris took a real chance in basically committing himself for ten years to finally get Pollock (2000) on the screen. Harris explained to me that he was fascinated by this important but very difficult American painter, who was destructive to himself and others (personal interviews 2001). And Harris never gave up on the project. As he has noted, “I had grown so intimate with this subject matter that I didn’t want anybody else to do this” (Collins 3). Thus, with the help of screenwriter Gregory White Smith, who worked from the biography by Steven Naifeh, Harris starred in the film, which also marked his directorial debut; and the film not only won an Oscar for Marcia Gay Harden but, as you can see above, has already made it to Sony’s top ten films for the company’s first ten years of distribution/production. Repeat: major studios were not interested in a film about a troubled alcoholic painter who basically abused himself and the women around him but who revolutionized American painting. Ed Harris got the film made because he took chances and believed in the project all the way. Now let’s turn to Australia. How do you make an Oscar-winning film based on the true story of a brilliant young pianist (David Helfgott) driven literally insane by a crushingly oppressive father? Geoffrey Rush, in Scott Hicks’s Shine (1996), won an Academy Award for his role as the stuttering genius in a brilliantly realized script by Jan Sardi (Scott Hicks, story credit). Clearly, Hicks and Sardi took a chance on opening up what could have been an alienating “case study” to find a deeply touching human story

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that embraces a carnival of music, friendship, and love in the most unlikely forms, and, thus, a sense of triumph over disability. Here’s one final example: Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000), starring the remarkable Bjork. Again, as in Shine, Dancer builds on a story of a real person under a strong affliction who seems to be living in a downward spiral with her young son. No plot summary can do justice to what would sound like only a depressing tale of an East European woman, Selma Yeskova, in 1964 in Washington state, who is going blind. Yeskova is trying to support her young son and raise money for an operation to save her sight, but she winds up committing murder and facing execution by film’s end. Imagine trying to pitch such a story to a California studio. But von Trier, building on his previous riveting films of troubled women under pressure, especially his award-winning film Breaking the Waves, delivered a script and film that cannot easily be forgotten. As one Internet commentator notes, Dancer in the Dark is “a harrowing, refreshingly original piece of filmmaking that should be experienced by anyone who dares to be different” (Internet Movie Database). 2. Who said there have to be three acts?

Rachid Nougmanov addresses the three-act tradition well in his piece in part 2 of this volume, but it is worth mentioning here as well. For whatever reason, practical or otherwise, those who write about what a Hollywood screenplay “should” be stress a three-act—beginning, middle, and end—structure and typically make rather fuzzy references to Aristotle’s Poetics. And certainly hundreds and hundreds of films can be shown to break rather neatly into such clearly evident sections. But so much of good independent and foreign filmmaking works on a much broader vision of narrative structure. How would you, for instance, divide almost any Robert Altman film into three acts? Altman himself admitted there really was no completed screenplay for Nashville (1975). In that film he tells twenty-six stories centered on twenty-six characters. Three acts? Forget it! And the result of “breaking the rules”? David

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Thomson is critical of Altman but does acknowledge, for instance, that in Nashville “the feeling of real time and space stretching to contain the actions of so many people, without moralizing, is both beautiful and demanding” (Thomson 10). And in one of the biggest hits to come out of Germany in recent years, Run Lola Run (1998), writer/director Tom Tykwer presents three versions of the same story. Lola is running to save her boyfriend, who is involved in a drug deal that’s gone wrong. More a clever stylistic exercise than a fulfilling narrative, as most reviewers wrote, but nevertheless an engaging film, halfway between an extended MTV piece and an actual feature film, Run Lola Run at minimum would have to weigh in with nine acts—three for each story told. Once more the message is clear: don’t be held prisoner by what others feel is the “only” way to structure your script. Many memorable and even great films have broken such structural “rules.” 3. Don’t forget the power of good children’s films.

While Hollywood continues to define “children’s films” as super animated films, such as Pokemon (1998), that can be used to market everything from video games and T-shirts to trading cards and pajamas, other countries inspire us all with a much broader vision of films centered on children. Why is it so hard for Hollywood to come up with films that appeal to adults as well as children in other than a Grinch (2000) or Toy Story (1995, 1999) approach to “family fare”? Whenever I screen De Sica’s Bicycle Thief (Italy, 1957) to people who haven’t seen it before, the above question sinks in. Children and adults both relate to a simple tale of a young boy trying to help his father find a bicycle thief in postwar Rome, when jobs are scarce and families are forced to send the children out to work. In more recent years a film such as Walter Salles’s Central Station (Brazil, 1998) works in this same tradition of appealing to a broad age group with a children-centered script. In this case we have a road movie

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about a nine-year-old boy in Rio de Janeiro whose mother has been killed, and he is seeking his father in a remote section of Brazil with the help of an old woman who writes letters for the illiterate in Rio’s main train station. Such simplicity! No special effects, no large budget, just the pain and joy of a young boy who is growing up too fast and is being helped by an older woman who becomes a mother figure. China and Iran have also given us many fine films in this “genre,” if we can call it such. Zhang Vimon’s Not One Less (China, 1999), for instance, builds on a true story of a thirteen-year-old girl in a remote Chinese village who is asked to take over teaching an elementary school class by the teacher, who leaves for another village. This story becomes a journey film as well, for the girl must search in Beijing for a missing student. From Iran there has been an impressive series of childrencentered films that, because of local censorship that forbids films about politics, religion, and sexuality, say much more than the simple stories depict on a surface level. Thus Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon (1995) with a script by Abbas Kiarostami—who has done so many fine films, including Through the Olive Trees and Taste of Cherry—follows an eightyear-old girl’s odyssey through Teheran’s crowded streets on the Muslim New Year’s Eve to buy a goldfish. Once more, complete simplicity of structure and story opens up a wealth of possibilities for showing much more, for Kiarostami and Panahi are able to present a whole cross section of Iranian society by simply showing street life and all who inhabit those streets. So the global suggestion is also simple: a very real and large market that is often neglected is this one that reaches children and adults alike. 4. A film can be entertaining and have something to say.

This point is so true yet difficult for many writers in the States to realize. For instance, when an American film has “something to say” in its script, more likely than not it becomes very serious. Witness, for example, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), which won Oscars and which everyone

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said was “very important” but which box office figures show few actually went to see in theaters. Many films from around the world, in contrast, suggest stories need not be categorized as either entertainment or art but can have it both ways. Michael Radford’s Il Postino (The Postman, 1994) is an Oscar-winning Italian/French production written by and starring Massimo Troisi, who died a day after principal photography was completed. The script and the film are memorable for their simplicity and power both to make us laugh and be moved. It is both a story about the love a young Italian, Mario (Troisi), feels for a woman in his island village, Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), and a tale of strong friendship between two men of very different countries and backgrounds: Mario, the Italian postman, and Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet in exile (memorably portrayed by French actor Philippe Noiret). The common bond connecting all is the subject at the center of the script: poetry. But consider the other element that makes this film quite “European”: the interplay of “politics” and life/poetry and how the uneasy coming together of poetry and politics leads to Mario’s death. Leonard Maltin noted that a large part of the “entertainment” value of the film is based in how international it is: “International talents combined to tell a universal story of how one person can affect another no matter how different their life experiences may have been” (Maltin 1107). Let us look closer at this film as an example of a successful charactercentered European script. More so than in most American films, this script is strongly dominated by a single character, Mario, who is the principal character in 82 of the 122 scenes. Few scenes exceed two pages in length; thus the script comprises only 74 pages, not the 110 pages supposedly “required” of American scripts. A great deal of space is given to the friendship of Mario and Neruda, including the closing shot, yet Beatrice appears enough for us to feel she is at the center of Mario’s world. Consider, too, how “landscape” becomes a character here: this is a sunny-Italian-islandby-the-sea story. The sea and coastal shots set the mood as well as provide a location.

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5. Embrace endings that are not easy or unequivocally “happy.”

The ending of The Postman is that Mario dies—definitely not an easy, happy ending. Most who have seen the film, however, recognize there is a sense of triumph despite Mario’s death (the fact that Troisi actually died immediately after filming adds to the narrative’s poignancy). Neruda, after all, has returned because of Mario. And Mario’s wife and child will continue to live with their memories of Mario, his poetry, and his love of them and of life. It’s an ending that draws forth tears but a smile as well, and that is common of many films made outside of Hollywood. Russians, for instance, have a long tradition of drawing strength and encouragement from tales that would seem depressing to many Americans raised on Hollywood endings. Ironically, for more than seventy years, during the Soviet Union’s period of communist rule, Soviet screenwriters were forced to write “happy endings” in which the party and its workingclass heroes and heroines won out over capitalists, royalty, and other riffraff. But with the coming of glasnost in the late 1980s they could return to a tradition that embraces writers such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov, as well as filmmakers such as Andrey Tarkovsky, Sergei Bodrov, and many others who demonstrated that human suffering can lead to healing even in defeat. Nikita Mikhalkov’s Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun (1994) is a clear example. Written by, directed by, and starring Mikhalkov, one of Russia’s most respected filmmakers, this tale is set in 1936, as Stalin is solidifying his power and executing all of those he suspects of disloyalty. The main character, played by Mikhalkov, was a hero of the Revolution but now is set to be executed by film’s end. In a beautifully realized script this figure ignites our sympathy as we see him with his young daughter and his wife, who is clearly at least a dozen years younger than he, and as we watch him struggling with his wife’s former lover, a KGB officer sent to bring our protagonist to his death. How did Mikhalkov view his ending? He told me that although Burnt by the Sun is not a Hollywood-style happy ending, it is nevertheless a triumphant one (personal interview 1994). The general has remained true to

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himself, his wife, his daughter, and, he believed and believes, his country. Thus, in dying, he wins in a sense: he has not lied or sold out to Stalin’s ruthless regime. I close this chapter with the ending of Robert Bresson’s film Mouchette (1969), about a young girl in a small French village who leads an unhappy and unfulfilled life. As a young man Bresson studied philosophy and painting. He then became a screenwriter and finally directed some of cinema’s most memorable films, including Diary of a Country Priest (1950), A Man Escaped (1956), and Pickpocket (1959). In Mouchette we sympathize completely with the heroine, who suffers both unjustified verbal and physical abuse from small-minded villagers. Even in this European film we expect some sense of personal triumph, like that suggested in Burnt by the Sun. But Bresson shocks and moves us deeply with a suicide as Mouchette simply rolls down a hill into a pond and never comes up. There is no dramatic music, no voice over, no tears or anguish expressed. She simply ends her life, and the film stops. One critic comments that this ending is “among the most distilled and moving events in cinema” (Thomson 88). I have never been brave enough to follow in Bresson’s footsteps as a screenwriter. But the influence of such global cinematic moments stays with me even when I’m writing comedy.

chapter 3

Eight Worldwide Projects Up Close

In this chapter we look closely at seven films and one television series that display a variety of worldwide influences in their conception and/or movement from script to production. Our goal? Well, of course, I hope to inspire you to take on a global project yourself if you have not already done so. Furthermore, I urge you to see these films/shows if you have not seen them and to go over the material mentioned, from Homer to Bosnia. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a triumphant example of a script written in two languages (English and Chinese) by an American and two Taiwanese screenwriters based on a Chinese novel. The Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a playful screenwriting lesson in taking a world classic—Homer’s Odyssey—and loosely building an American script on themes, characters, and stories from the ancient bard. The Price of Milk, from New Zealand, celebrates what happens when a local sense of comedy takes on wide-ranging influences, including surrealistic Yugoslav film humor. Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning Traffic is an impressive example of an American director’s “borrowing” from abroad, in this case from a British television five-and-a-half-hour miniseries, Traffik, made in 1989. Our next film, the internationally successful Zorba the Greek, suggests what happens when a Greek novel is adapted by 53

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a Greek director/writer—Michael Cacoyannis—financed by a Hollywood studio—Twentieth Century Fox—and shot on location in Greece with Anthony Quinn—a Mexican American—playing the lead character. No Man’s Land is a first feature by Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic that walked off with the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. And finally, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the surprise box office smash of 2002, written and starring Greek American writer/actress Nia Vardalos, that proved it doesn’t hurt to be “global” by bringing to the screen an ethnic group—Greek Americans—that has almost never been center stage in film before. That leaves our television sample: The Sopranos not only demonstrates television screenwriting at its best but reflects a number of international influences that help to give it a particularly unique texture. What do all of these scripts have in common? It is very simple: they take chances, as I have suggested one should, and they all gain from crossnational influences that enlighten particular times and cultures while destroying boundaries of history and nations. Of course, anyone who writes scripts asks a basic question about scripts we admire: “How did they do that?” Thus, it is important to “study” scripts that impress us. And this is even more important in the case of global screenwriting, for the influences and elements that go into each global success are varied and worth sorting out to see if we, as writers, can personally gain from trying similar approaches, techniques, and influences while adding our own insights. Enough said; now for our eight sample scripts.

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON: FROM BEIJING AND HONG KONG TO HOLLYWOOD WITH DREAMS, CONTEMPLATION, AND KICK-ASS ACTION

Imagine trying to pitch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to a studio executive. Let’s say you give it a try as “a Chinese martial arts epic romance in Chinese with all the major fight scenes between women who are able to bounce sky high and fly at will through trees and across rooftops; in short,

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this is a Zen kung fu Romeo and Juliet.” Yes, it’s hard to imagine the look on the studio executive’s face during such a pitch, but Ang Lee’s dream became a fifteen-million-dollar film reality that has made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office worldwide. The script is based on a Chinese novel by Wang Du Lu and is written in English and Chinese by an American screenwriter, James Schamus (also coproducer), and Wang Hui Ling of Taiwan, with help from Tsai Kuo Jung and the oversight of director Ang Lee, who was born in Taiwan of Chinese parents but was raised in the United States. In this clearly worldwide project director Ang Lee deserves credit for assemblingaseasonedteamthathasworkedtogetherpreviouslyonscriptsthat cross national borders and languages. Schamus’s script credits include Lee’s The Ice Storm, which he adapted from the novel by Rick Moody (the script won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 1997), Eat Drink Man Woman, and The Wedding Banquet. And Wang Hui Ling cowrote Eat Drink Man Woman. But we need to look closer at Ang Lee to determine the vibrantly worldwide spirit behind a filmmaker who can make both Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger. As I have mentioned, Ang Lee is Taiwanese by birth but was raised in the United States; he holds degrees from the University of Illinois (theater) and NYU (film). His global perspective is prominent in his remarks to the New York Times on the magical sense of innocence he hopes to capture in each of his scripts/films. In speaking of a Chinese film, Li Hanxiang’s Love Eternal, which he saw as a child of nine, Lee remarks the film had an innocence that has always haunted him: I think that for every movie I make, I always try to duplicate that feeling of purity and innocence I got whenever I saw this movie. I bring in Western drama. I bring in metaphor. I bring in Jean-Luc Godard. Whatever I bring into my own films I am forever trying to update and recapture that feeling. I call it juice—the juice of the film—the thing that moves people, the thing that is untranslatable by words. (Lyman B1)

With such a background Lee has overseen the writing of Crouching Tiger so that his writers have indeed captured the “juice” he speaks of.

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Schamus emphasizes how his Western sense of narrative combined with an Eastern sense of mystery, metaphor, and culture in the writing of the script. According to Schamus, when his first draft was translated from English to Chinese for the other writers, “It was clear that there was a lot of the culture that was missing in the original English script” (Crouching Tiger 130). He gives Wang Hui Ling a lot of credit for adding the cultural texture and “juice” that he, as a Westerner, could not possibly have come up with. Schamus adds, “The Chinese [language] embedded in every word of this movie has layers and layers of culture and meanings. They simply don’t exist to the Western ear. It is one of the delicious ironies of this movie that although I co-wrote it, I’ll never fully understand all of its meanings” (ibid.). Celebrate these words! Can we as screenwriters thinking globally but living locally ever imagine a more satisfying experience? Of course so much of the power of Crouching Tiger comes from Ang Lee’s direction; the sweeping landscapes of various locations in China, including the Gobi Desert; the choreography of the “wired” high-leaping fighters; and the splendid performances of Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Cheng Pei Pei, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen. But without the global script by this trio of writers, there would be no film. Now for an even closer look at the script’s structure and texture, let’s note five important components from the many we could focus on. Mixed/overlapping genre approach to story and character

Ang Lee achieved what he wanted most from his screenwriters: a seamless mixing of Hong Kong kung fu–like physical action (choreographed by the Hong Kong expert in kung fu who choreographed The Matrix, for instance) and an attention to character shading that British and European cinemas and literature exhibit, as seen in Lee’s Sense and Sensibility. Add to this narrative gumbo Lee’s homage to several generations of Chinese films, and the script has what critic Richard Corliss called a feel of “grand old movies and computer technology” (Crouching Tiger 9).

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Clear action-oriented plot with strong inner personal growth at the center of all

Lee explains his “double” vision of action surface and inner searching as he discusses the meaning of the title of the film. According to Lee, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a story about passions, emotions, desires—the dragons hidden inside all of us” (Crouching Tiger 76). Of course, this approach is embedded in Wang Du Lu’s martial arts novel, a genre that caused the author’s work to be banned under strict communist rule after the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s (the novel actually is in several volumes and is several thousand pages long). But the screenwriters have successfully brought out this idea that every action has an inner reaction and that not all “meanings” can be easily explained, including the ending of the script. David Bordwell has explained that this genre is called wuxia pian and literally means “martial chivalry” (Crouching Tiger 14). The overall theme of the genre is that in a corrupt China, where law has no real or lasting sway, personal morals become the only worthy goal. The script of Crouching Tiger clearly affirms this genre. Tragic romance playing off of action drama

Again, I am speaking of mixed genres. Yet structurally the two strands of tragic romance and action give the script its dual thrust. And within this double-narrative approach, we have two sets of lovers: we open the narrative with the unexpressed love between the handsome but now aging grand warrior Li Mu Bai and his friend Yu Shu Lien. Against this “hidden dragon” of romance there is the action plot of giving away the Green Destiny sword and Li’s mission to seek revenge while also giving up his warrior’s way of life. The romance within the romance is that of the expressed love between the young beauty and warrior Jen Yu and Lo, a romance that plays out with passion, violence, humor, and compassion. Thus the “generational” structure of the script is also important to the rich texture of the total effect.

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A tone that shifts between buoyancy and gravity

Narrative ambience is crucial to every script, and in this case not only is there a visual seesawing demonstrated by characters who fly yet who also display ponderous emotions, but the screenwriters have delivered a script that moves skillfully between tears and laughter. Put another way, Crouching Tiger reminds us that there is no tragedy without humor (the grave diggers’ scene in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, is quite funny) and no comedy without some tragedy (how else to explain our tears while laughing during Life Is Beautiful?). Strong female characters

Surely many avid members of audiences for Crouching Tiger have felt that in some ways this is a “feminist” script, with women kicking ass, rather than the standard Hollywood “guys with guns” blockbuster script. But as Ang Lee explains, strong female leads and major roles in martial arts works, including Peking Operas, have a long history. In these films, “Women always played the main male roles. . . . It was a tradition in Chinese opera where the prettiest man’s part was played by a woman” (Lyman 28). Crouching Tiger caught everyone by surprise as it almost immediately took off at the box office. My brief glance is not meant to overanalyze but to suggest some of the screenwriting elements that were contributed by all who were responsible. My final point is simply the unity of energy and vision and joy that these writers and Ang Lee obviously shared. Ang Lee gives us a final wrap with these words: “The intellectualizing, the analysis—that can come later. In my movies I hope that all of these are still in hiding. It is the juice that we want. I think that is what brings us to the movie theater” (ibid.). Film Credits

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Production company: Asia Union Film and Entertainment, Ltd., Sony Pictures Classics, Edko Films, Good

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Machine, and United China Vision. Executive producers: David Linde and James Schamus. Producers: Ang Lee, Hsu Li Kong, and Bill Kong. Director: Ang Lee. Screenplay: James Schamus, Wang Hui Ling, and Tsai Kuo Jung, based on the novel by Wang Du Lu. Cinematography: Peter Pau. Editor: Tim Squyres. Production design: Tim Yip. Music: Tan Dun. Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Zi Yi, Chang Chen, Lung Sihung. 120 minutes. Color. O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? HOMER MEETS PRESTON STURGES IN THE COEN BROTHERS’ CONTEMPORARY ODYSSEY

Followers of the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, are joyfully aware of how predictable their unpredictability has become. What can one say about the fellows who have written, produced, and shot such wildly divergent films as Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, and Fargo? Their work clearly reflects a carnivalesque view of cinema, culture, and life. Thus playful and clever borrowing of elements of story, spirit, and scale from both Homer and the great American writer/director of comedy Preston Sturges gives O Brother, Where Art Thou? an original twist that is truly global in origin and in terms of its echoes. As with Crouching Tiger, I will select five script elements to focus on in the Coen brothers’ “Homeric” comic epic. Genre: “ensemble epic” comic parody and “picaresque road movie”

As with Crouching Tiger, we have a mixed genre script that blends Homer’s epic with the American road movie, chain-gang escape story, parody, and ensemble comedy. The Coens are masters at mixing genres; indeed, Fargo’s twin tracks of murder/crime narrative and dark comedy gave that Oscar-winning film much of its unique flavor. Similarly, O Brother builds as a script on its overall structure as a journey—the most flexible of all narrative forms, for as Homer shows us, odysseys can embrace the realistic, the mythic, the poetic, and the dramatic.

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Based on Homer’s Odyssey

Nominated for the “Best Writing” Oscar for a “screenplay based on material previously produced or published,” the Coens list Homer’s Odyssey as the root of the film. But then they claim they have never read the ancient Greek epic! The truth is no doubt somewhere in between. On one hand, claiming Homer as a source sounds playfully pretentious in a Coen brothers way. Yet the truth is that however they ingested Homer, they have absolutely used much of the structure, theme, character, and even individual tales of Homer’s classic. For all of us as screenwriters, a close look at this “loose” approach to adaptation is worth considering, for any one of us might find the perfect “root story” in some other classic, ranging from Aristophanes or Balzac to Dickens and Cervantes. The trick is in how we use such inspiration for our own ends. Here are only a few of the Coens’ borrowings from the Greek bard: Opening with the first lines of Homer’s Odyssey. The opening lines of Homer’s epic appear on the screen in the Coen brothers’ film: “O Muse! Sing in me, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all the ways of contending, a wanderer, harried for years . . .”

These lines do more than simply acknowledge the Coens’ source. They clue us to the fact that there is a clear “self-reflexive” quality to the original that will be echoed in O Brother. By identifying the muse and the process of storytelling in the opening lines, Homer champions the process of weaving tales, a theme reflected both in Odysseus’s ability to make up stories and in the frequent appearance of bards in the act of telling tales throughout The Odyssey. Narrative structure: A journey home after a long absence to be reunited with wife and child(ren) after adventures and troubles. In Homer’s tale

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Odysseus is trying to get home to Ithaca after all of the drama of the Trojan War. His goal is to be reunited with his wife, Penelope (Penny in the Coen brothers’ version), and his son, Telemachus, who was only a baby when he left for Troy (a bevy of daughters in O Brother). Appearance of Homer or the bard within his own tale. Hitchcock did his sneak appearances in his films, but Homer, or ‘the bard,” appears throughout his epics as well. In O Brother the bard is the blind black “seer” on a rail car seen at the beginning and end of the film. As in Homer’s work, he “previews” what will happen and, in seeing him at the end, once more, we are made aware of the whole story as a story this blind black Homer has “told.” Odysseus as the protagonist traveling with his crew. The Coens use, as did James Joyce, the Latin name for Odysseus: Ulysses. Our main character is Ulysses Everett McGill, who, like Odysseus, is on a journey with his companions (Pete and Delmar in the Coens’ version). In terms of character development, both Odysseus and Ulysses share the central trait of being able to invent schemes, tricks, lies, multiple identities. Penelope, the long-suffering and faithfully waiting wife. The Coens turn this ancient tradition upside down as their “Penny” has found a suitor, Waldrip, who stands in for Homer’s hundred plus suitors and who has apparently fathered the baby Penny holds in her arms next to Ulysses’ six daughters. Claiming that Everett, as Ulysses is called in the script, got “hit by a train,” Penny is planning to wed Waldrip the next day, again reversing the Homeric Penelope’s refusal to wed anyone else. And instead of the loving long embrace that ensues in Homer’s final reunion of husband and wife, the Coens give us a bickering Penny and Ulysses quibbling over a lost ring! A dangerous Cyclops who must be overcome. The Coens do not slavishly try to work in every Homeric episode, but I will mention one that

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is clearly referenced. Big Dan, the phony born-again preacher with the tag motto of “Do unto others before they do unto you” wears a patch over one eye and is a good example of the filmmakers’ playing with Homer. We could list another dozen or so “borrowings” from Homer, but there is no need to for our purposes. The point is clear: like jazz musicians, the Coens have used Homer to “riff ” on familiar themes for their own purposes. Echoing Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels

The title O Brother, Where Art Thou? comes directly from Preston Sturges’s comic masterpiece Sullivan’s Travels (1941). Sturges remains one of the brightest writers of American film comedy ever, and in Sullivan’s Travels he creates the character of a famous Hollywood director of comedy, Sullivan (Joel McCrea), who undertakes his own odyssey to discover what human suffering is all about away from the world of Hollywood storytelling. The purpose of Sullivan’s journey is to gain the experience he believes he needs to make a “serious” film entitled O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen brothers’ film is thus an affectionate and playful wink to lovers of comedy everywhere since it is the story that Sullivan never films. As with the Homeric source, the Coens comically reverse key elements of Sturges’s story. Whereas Sullivan is searching for trouble (and finds it!), the Coen brothers’ trio of Ulysses, Pete, and Delmar is trying to escape it. And whereas Sullivan meets a “girl” (Veronica Lake) who becomes a loving sidekick, Everett, as we have seen, has to work hard at winning back his reluctant Penny. But other influences from Sturges include: Fast-paced, witty dialogue. Nobody wrote more zany, fast-paced dialogue than Preston Sturges in comedies such as The Lady Eve, Hail the Conquering Hero, Palm Beach Story, and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Yet the Coens come very close.

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A bevy of memorable minor characters. Sturges’s films are crammed full of minor characters that stay with us long after the comedy ends, and the Coens have done the same with O Brother. The script sparkles with dwarfs, blind radio announcers, crooked politicians, black blues singers, and many more memorable characters. Sullivan’s Travels takes on America via the Southwest, including Nevada and California, but the Coens have served up an American South during the 1930s, the same time frame as Sturges’s comic odyssey. A carnivalesque celebration of American culture that is both satirical and celebratory. In a Sturges work such as Hail the Conquering Hero, small-town American life is simultaneously ridiculed and held up as a kind of ideal. In short, Sturges had a talent for creatively working the borderline territory between caricature and individuality; thus, his films are filled with the kinds of stereotypes that so much of comedy thrives on and, at the same time, with protagonists that demonstrate personal character. The Coens play the same “borderline” territory. Some reviews have been hostile, seeing the film as purely making fun of the stereotypic South, with KKK lynchings and such. But, in fact, the Coens take stereotypes and caricatures and turn them inside out so that they gain a fresh currency. Take the scene of Delmar’s baptism by the river, for instance. Delmar’s conversion strikes us as real, even while we are laughing at the near drowning he undergoes as a result of his religious transformation. Finally, there is the whole chain-gang motif. In Sullivan’s Travels Sullivan winds up on a chain gang in the final section of the film; he finally escapes, however, by working a scheme to reveal his true identity. The Coens begin with this narrative strand, including our protagonists’ escape. Their odyssey is thus a running away from and a search for a proposed goal— hidden money from a robbery that Everett, in the true Odysseus spirit of “trickery,” has claimed to have committed (after all, the Trojan War was won not by force but by the trick of the Trojan horse, which Odysseus de-

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vised). The turning point in the Coens’ script comes when Everett confesses there is no hidden treasure and that he has lied to his friends. The importance of music

It is not an accident that music is absolutely central to O Brother, Where Art Thou? Again, the Homeric wink is clear, for Homer and the bards, as oral poets, did not simply recite their lines, they sang them to lyres and other kinds of musical accompaniment. The whole script is thus, on one level, a carefully orchestrated musical from start to finish, providing us with a marvelous anthology of southern gospel, folk, pop, and country songs, ranging from “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” “Lonesome Valley,” “Keep on the Sunny Side,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “Down to the River to Pray,” and, of course, “Man of Constant Sorrow,” sung by our protagonists as The Soggy Bottom Boys. The Coens’ craft of brevity and concise scene construction

Worldwide influences having been noted, I would like to go further with O Brother to suggest another important lesson we can learn about contemporary screenwriting from the Coens: economy of dialogue and pacing. The script submitted for Oscar consideration contained ninety-three scenes spread over 104 pages. That fact alone helps us to appreciate the economy of the writing, for only nineteen of the ninety-three scenes are two or more pages in length, so we can see how little “long-winded” writing there is. Note also that this really is an “ensemble buddy road movie” in terms of plot and picaresque structure. All three characters—Everett, Pete, and Delmar—appear in fifty of the ninety-three scenes, even though we realize “Ulysses Everett” is the main character. As with Homer’s epic, the “road” structure offers the most variety possible yet with a final goal/purpose in mind. In Homer the goal is Odysseus’s return to Penelope, his son,

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and estate. For the Coens the plot turns out the same, but it is, on the surface, a journey to recover the alleged lost treasures that will make the trio of friends wealthy. Sam Peckinpah claimed that his much-celebrated 1960s revisionist western, The Wild Bunch (1969), was based in part on Homer’s The Iliad. At the time almost nobody took him seriously, but the fact is that he was speaking the truth. Although the Coens have more openly acknowledged the ancient poet, Peckinpah’s strongly “American” tale becomes all the richer in theme, content, and development because of influences that a long-dead Greek has provided an American filmmaker. I think it is important that we close out our look at O Brother by pointing out that the viewer doesn’t need to have a Ph.D. in Greek literature or American film comedy or a thorough familiarity with Preston Sturges to enjoy this film. The Coen brothers’ film holds up on its own merits. Thus, what we have explored above is how the script gains in “extra” pleasures for those who bring a background in Homer and Sturges to their viewing experience and how these sources have truly inspired these eclectic independent American screenwriters/filmmakers. Film Credits

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Production company: Buena Vista Pictures, together with Universal Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Studio Canal, and Working Title Films (UK). Executive producers: Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan. Producers: Ethan Coen and James Cameron. Director: Joel Coen. Screenplay: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, based on Homer’s The Odyssey. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Editors: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (as Roderick James). Production design: Dennis Gasner. Music: T-Bone Burnett and Chris Thomas King. Cast: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Chris Thomas King, and Charles Durning. 106 minutes. Color.

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THE PRICE OF MILK: NEW ZEALAND MEETS THE BALKANS IN HARRY SINCLAIR’S ROMANTIC COMEDY

In an old bathtub set on a deep-green North Island New Zealand farming hillside a shy young dairy farmer (Karl Urban) puts an engagement ring on his lusty and lovely tub mate (Danielle Cormack), after they have sipped champagne and washed dishes, all while seated opposite each other in their foamy tub. The pure romance, humor, and originality of the moment is typical of so many surprisingly pleasing moments in The Price of Milk. Part fairy tale with elements of magic realism involving a theme of indigenous peoples and land ownership, part screwball farce involving some 117 dairy cows, and definitely romantic farming comedy between Rob, the dairy farmer, and Lucinda, his true love, Harry Sinclair’s second feature film not only announces a maturing of his many talents, but it also signals a joyous and carnivalesque departure from mainstream New Zealand cinema traditions that even draws from influences found in Yugoslav “magic realism” film comedies. Certainly, viewed from abroad, New Zealand cinema conjures up “serious” and dramatic images, with films such as Roger Donaldson’s Smash Palace (1981), Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), Lee Tamahouri’s Once Were Warriors (1994), Geoff Murphy’s Utu (1983), and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994). Comedy has definitely not been a strong suit in New Zealand films. Yet various shades of humor have appeared, ranging from the buddy road pranks of Geoff Murphy’s Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), the sly social comedy and satire of Gaylene Preston’s Ruby and Rata (1990), and the over-the-top farcical romps of Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste (1986) and Braindead (1992), in which Sinclair played a small role. Finally, there is the sneaky realm of the mockumentary in Peter Jackson and Costa Botes’s Forgotten Silver (1998). The Price of Milk playfully and daringly goes beyond any of these New Zealand comic efforts. Sinclair’s film is unique yet also indicative of a younger generation of filmmakers emerging in what we might call a “post–Peter Jackson New Zealand film” phase. In this section I wish to

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briefly cover both the comic narrative and characterization within the film and Harry Sinclair’s unusual approach to filmmaking that led to The Price of Milk. For Sinclair has quite literally created a film that is “carnivalesque” in the sense of a celebration of freedom, fantasy, and festivity, as explained by Mikhail Bakhtin when Bakhtin is describing the world of carnival in Rabelais and the European Middle Ages. Bakhtin notes that “they [carnival times] must be sanctioned not by the world of practical conditions but by the highest aims of human existence, that is, by the world of ideals. Without this sanction, there can be no festivity” (9). Sinclair himself has “sanctioned” his cast and crew, including his fine cinematographer, Leon Narby, to go beyond the “world of practical conditions,” as we will discover. No simple plot summary can do justice to this romantic dairy tale. What is real is the lush green hilly countryside outside of Auckland on the North Island. And the 117 cows that Rob tends are also real, as are our main characters. The simple romance of two young country folk is also “real,” as is a jealousy subplot involving Lucinda’s friend, Drosophila (Willa O’Neill), who attempts to steal Rob away. But this realistic basis is infused and, yes, subverted by a fairy tale–like dimension involving an old Maori woman (Rangi Motu), who is something of a cross between a fairy godmother and a benevolent witch. “Auntie,” as she is called, enters the lives of the young lovers when she is accidentally run over by Lucinda. Thereafter, she appears and disappears “magically” along with a bevy of golf club wielding young Maori men. Comedy, slapstick, and pure mayhem follow as a wedding is subverted, as land claims are argued over, and as lovers’ misunderstandings are finally worked out. On a narrative basis, therefore, because “magic” is involved, we never really know what will happen next. At one point a truck falls out of the sky. At another the bevy of Maoris appear at the young couple’s shack, and so on. At one moment Auntie is on the road, and at the next she simply disappears; and Rob’s dog, which suffers from acrophobia, wanders through the landscape inside a cardboard box. There is a strong Indian/Asian dimension, too, as our couple opts for a wedding that looks more like it is taking place in Calcutta

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than in the countryside of New Zealand, as Lucinda trails across the landscape in a deep-red sari with a veil that seems a hundred yards long at least. In short, anything can happen and generally does in this New Zealand cinematic roman candle of engaging scenes loosely linked together. Yugoslav filmmaker Srdjan Karanovic is fond of saying that “all films are documentary fairy tales” (personal interview). By this he means that all films that are not animation or computer generated graphics “document” actors playing out some form of story in a real location. The fairy tale is the fiction part of filmmaking, for it takes on the “what if ” possibilities of character, chance, conflict, and action. “Documentary fairy tale” is actually a useful term to describe two influences that are apparent in The Price of Milk: the mixture of dreams and reality like that in Peter Jackson’s films, especially Heavenly Creatures, and the style of magic realism seen in Balkan films, especially those of Emir Kusturica. Sinclair’s work is clearly original. But Jackson’s eclectic mixtures of camp, satire, horror, and comedy suggest certain influences in “spirit,” if not in direct borrowings, from Balkan social comic magic realism as seen in Emir Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies (1989). Kusturica—a Bosnian Muslim filmmaker from Sarajevo—uses what has come to be called “Balkan magic realism” throughout his films, as characters “walk” through the skies of Sarajevo (When Father Was Away on Business, 1985), as a group of Yugoslavs lives underground from World War II until the Bosnian War, unaware that the Second World War ended long ago (Underground, 1997), and as whole houses are lifted off their foundation by a single rope attached to a motorcycle (Time of the Gypsies). Kusturica’s comic magic realism works on much the same level that The Price of Milk does. Time of the Gypsies tracks a real character—a young gypsy boy—through his poverty, loves, family problems, and, finally, his involvement with a gypsy mafia ring in northern Italy. As in Sinclair’s film, the cinematography is often sweeping and lush, tracking over a haunting ritual on a river in one scene, for instance, much as Sinclair’s camera celebrates the South Auckland dairy countryside. And Kusturica’s

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sound track, composed by Goran Brekovich, uses full orchestration built on gypsy tunes. The Price of Milk reflects other influences and similarities with Time of the Gypsies. Part of what Kusturica succeeds in doing is pulling us into the world of gypsies, where “anything” can happen because the gypsies are so outside of any mainstream culture (Horton, “Cinematic Makeovers” 175). The main character, for instance, has the power to will objects to move, a talent that becomes a key plot element by film’s end as he murders the “godfather” by making a fork fly through the air at a wedding banquet and lodge in the godfather’s neck. In a lighter vein Sinclair has woven the Maori element of Auntie and her young warriors with golf clubs as possessing supernatural powers, including the ability to appear and disappear seemingly at will. As in Kusturica’s work, our sense in The Price of Milk is that we “white folks” are just not privy to a full understanding of the powers these people have. Two direct borrowings also appear, whether intentional or not. Kusturica has some of the young gypsy children wander through the village and countryside inside of cardboard boxes as part of their sense of play. Visually the image of boxes simply drifting along the street or hillside is both funny and surreal. Similarly, Sinclair’s acrophobic dog who drifts in and out of the frame inside a cardboard box provides a playfully surreal motif. And, finally, Lucinda’s seemingly endless wedding train that drapes and drifts over the landscape as she walks through it echoes the wedding train of Kusturica’s young hero’s dead gypsy mother. In Time of the Gypsies the train hovers in the sky above our protagonist at critical moments in his life as a ghostly presence of the absent mother he so desperately misses. Again, I emphasize that Sinclair has opened the horizons of New Zealand film comedy through such influences. In no way am I suggesting that he is somehow trying to simply “remake” a Kusturica or Jackson film in his own style. In fact, as to Time of the Gypsies, Sinclair has written that “I saw Time of the Gypsies a few years ago and totally loved it. I saw it again recently and noticed some little connections with The Price of Milk—

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Maybe it’s a kind of subconscious homage to Kusturica” (personal interview). In terms of Sinclair’s approach to screenwriting, The Price of Milk suggests a strongly “carnivalesque” approach to filmmaking itself. He has said in interviews that there was no full script—only a long treatment—but what was eventually filmed was not a series of improvised pieces. He worked with the actors, rehearsed, and then wrote scenes each evening that were acted as written. Sinclair did script what actors finally said and did on camera. But we do have to acknowledge the “free play” he allowed all in reaching the point that he did in his writing. As he comments: One of the things that I really like is not being in full control of everything. In “normal” film making you have this blueprint that you are trying desperately to stick to, things inevitably go wrong and it’s very hard to adjust, it affects everything else. I try and work in a way that the unexpected developments are the most exciting thing. I want to capitalize on the events that are usually regarded as problems. It makes you free to go with what’s exciting at the moment. Film tends to be “stiff.” I’m trying to find ways to make it flaccid. (Campbell)

Thus, if we had to use one phrase to describe Sinclair’s approach to the whole filmmaking process, it would be “performance based.” Sinclair elaborates on this point: I like what naturally occurs between actors. The most important thing for me is trying to put the actors in a position where they are going to do their best work. Trying to find characters that suit the actors, so it doesn’t feel pushed. If you want to portray a love relationship it’s important to cast the actors so that the relationship could be true. Try to create a form of acting that doesn’t feel pushed. It’s very performance based, my entire methodology is based on the performance. I guess it comes from being an actor in the old days. (personal correspondence, Dec. 2000)

There we have it. Sinclair occupies that crossroads between acting, writing, and directing. For many such a blend would be either pretentiousness or an exercise in spreading oneself far too thin. In the case of The Price of

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Milk, however, we have a rare example of each part of Sinclair’s talent helping to inspire the other elements. Film Credits

The Price of Milk (2001). Production company: John Swimmer, Ltd. Executive producer: Tim Sanders. Producer: Fiona Copland. Director: Harry Sinclair. Screenplay: Harry Sinclair. Cinematography: Leon Narbey. Editor: Cushia Dillon. Production design: Kristy Cameron. Music: Moscow Symphony Orchestra. Cast: Danielle Cormack, Karl Urban, Willa O’Neill, Rangi Motu, Michael Lawrence. 87 minutes. Color.

TRAFFIC: FROM PAKISTAN TO MEXICO VIA HOLLYWOOD

Fade in: The location is the White House, and the occasion is the announcement of a new ten-point “war on drugs” made by the head of the government’s effort to end the drug traffic into the United States. Robert Lewis begins speaking but finally breaks down:

robert: I can’t do this. (beat) If there is a War on Drugs then our own families have become the enemy. How can you wage war on your own family?

Thus Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, with an Oscar-winning script by Stephen Gaghan, begins its pursuit of this question, which has no easy answer for an official whose teenage daughter has become an addict. Traffic not only became one of the surprise box office hits of 2000, but it also walked off with the New York Critics Association’s “Best Film” award. The script is, however, a feature-film adaptation of 1988’s Traffik, a fiveand-a-half-hour British miniseries for Channel 4 about the Pakistani drug trade entering Britain via Germany. The original teleplay was penned by Simon Moore. Of the scripts considered in this group, this is the only example of a

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project moving across international borders from the medium of television to the big screen. Gaghan, as screenwriter, and Soderbergh, as director, have done an excellent job of keeping the gritty style and message of this drug-saturated contemporary tale, although they switched the countries involved to make the story relevant for the American scene. This process leads us back to the power of the original script by Simon Moore and the miniseries directed by Alastair Reed. In a complex narrative mixture of stories involving Pakistan, Germany, and Britain, Moore and Reed cast a broad net that plays the whole drug issue against social, political, and moral issues. Traffik sets up the contrast and conflict besetting an antidrug government official whose daughter winds up becoming a drug addict, leading this government administrator to realize the futility of fighting the drug war. I am separating out Gaghan’s 145-page script (talk about breaking the rules of traditional Hollywood screenwriting!) from Soderbergh’s effective casting and directing. No one disputes the awarding of the Oscar for such an unusual “idea-driven” project at a time when movies are plotdriven and loaded with special effects. But we should also praise Simon Moore, for many viewers found the original miniseries more dramatic and powerful than Soderbergh’s film. As critic Julie Salamon notes, “In many crucial ways, the 2000 Hollywood version simply transplanted, updated, shortened, and Americanized Simon Moore’s dense, nuanced script for Traffik” (B4). Therefore, my three brief observations of the writing refer to both versions.

Television from other countries can be a rich source for either features or television in your own country.

There are Brazilian and Mexican dramatic soap operas that are so popular around the world that companies can simply buy the scripts under contract and “adapt” them for their own country instead of buying the rights to the episodes and rebroadcasting them dubbed or with subtitles. A friend

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in Greece once had the job of turning a Mexican melodrama into a Greek soap opera, down to the details of substituting ouzo for Mexican beer! Think how some American television shows, such as All in the Family, began as British shows. Thus, rerouting Traffik to the States as Traffic was brilliant but also, one could argue, inevitable.

The complex interweaving of three tales helps us get both a detailed and a “big” picture of the “drug war.”

We are used to screenplays that give us a variety of takes on an issue or a situation. Casablanca, for instance, settles finally on Rick’s story but only after sketching numerous individual tales, all united by the location: Casablanca. Traffic works as a thematic title too, immediately calling up the commerce of drugs, which is dealt with primarily in the Mexican sections of the film. But “traffic” also suggests the “busy” work of the government, displayed in both screen versions as a complicated mixture of sincere efforts to save lives and politically motivated efforts to gain power and win votes. Finally, there is also a San Diego “sting” plot in which agents are out to identify and capture a local drug lord who deals directly with Mexican sources. The result of these three stories playing against and off each other is a film that Variety calls “a powerful overview of the contemporary drug culture” (McCarthy 1). Then there is Caroline’s tale. The story that starts as a subplot but becomes very much a part of the central narrative is that of Caroline Lewis, daughter of Robert Lewis, the new Washington head of the war on drugs. She is described by Gaghan as “really sixteen which means she looks about 12, pretty and flirtatiously irreverent” (13). All of the crosscutting of narratives and color schemes (the sepia look of the Mexican segments is not mentioned in the screenplay) leads to the huge irony of the leader of the war against drugs losing his daughter to “the enemy,” which he acknowledges in the speech quoted above.

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The script condemns the status quo but avoids suggesting easy answers or alternatives.

A number of viewer-response surveys showed that people in favor of legalizing drugs and those adamantly in favor of the war on drugs appreciated the candor and tough-mindedness of Traffic. Almost all critics found the scene, near the close of the film, in which Robert and his wife wind up at a drug rehab meeting with their daughter a bit too easy: “It’s so obvious, it’s blinking neon” writes the New York Times (Salamon B4): robert: My name is Robert. This is my wife, Barbara. We’re Caroline’s parents. We’re just here to listen.

Traffik is less sentimental in its closing moments, but neither version preaches to us. Similar to the effect of Tim Robbins’s Dead Man Walking (1995) in its depiction of the death penalty in America, Traffic goes for an open-ended close rather than a Hollywood wrap-up that resolves all major issues. We hate the drug lords in Mexico, but the film helps us better appreciate the crushing poverty and lure of get-rich-quick schemes that motivate them. We sympathize in some ways with the government’s wanting to save lives, yet the fumbling Washington and FBI bureaucracy appears underfunded and agents undergunned when compared to the Mexican drug cartels and their bosses. Finally, we tip our hats to these writers for daring to write scripts about issues that really matter. This fact alone makes both scripts award-winning material in an age when “content-driven” stories seem difficult to make or sell.

Film Credits

Traffic (2000). Production company: USA Films, in association with Initial Entertainment Group and Bedford Falls/Laura Rickford Productions. Executive producers: Richard Solomon, Mike Newell, Carmen Jones,

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Graham King, and Andreas Klein. Producers: Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz, and Laura Rickford. Director: Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay: Stephen Gaghan, based on the screenplay for Traffik, by Simon Moore. Cinematography: Peter Andrews. Editor: Stephen Mirrione. Production design: Philip Messina. Music: Cliff Martinez. Cast: Michael Douglas, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Luiz Guzman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steven Bauer, and Albert Finney. 147 minutes. Color.

ZORBA THE GREEK: HOLLYWOOD SHOOTS A GREEK TALE IN ENGLISH, STARRING A MEXICAN

All of the examples mentioned so far for worldwide script projects have been recent films. Now I’d like to look back four decades to take in a much earlier example, the Oscar-winning Zorba the Greek, from 1964. Ironically, it is one of those happenstances of life that I am writing about Zorba the Greek in Greece a week after Anthony Quinn died. Greeks here were deeply touched by Quinn’s passing, calling him the “patriarch of actors” and praising him as the definitive “Zorba,” even though he was not a Greek at all but rather of Irish and Mexican heritage. But Quinn as Zorba, that life-loving free spirit of a man, is only part of the worldwide aspect of this Hollywood film based on a Greek novel with a script written by a Greek from Cyprus, Michael Cacoyannis, who also directed the film. A director of ancient Greek tragedies for Greek, European, and American stages, as well as a director of strong dramas in Greek, such as Stella and The Girl in Black (both 1955), Cacoyannis brought all of his considerable experience to bear in bringing a popular Greek novel to the screen in English. And although Cacoyannis was absolutely a man of the Greek cinema of the time, the film of Zorba the Greek is technically a Twentieth Century Fox production and thus a Hollywood film (with strong British ties, too, including actor Alan Bates). Why would such a mainline studio suddenly go quite “global” rather than simply shooting a film on location? There is a

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simple answer in this case: the head of Twentieth Century Fox for years had been a Greek legend, Spyros Skouras. Thus, in the spirit we have emphasized in this book, Hollywood took a chance. The results? An instant hit that made Anthony Quinn a star and put the memorable music by Mikis Theodorakis on every jukebox and radio station around the world. Even recent audiences have been moved, as was this viewer commenting on the Internet: “This is a great Movie! Zorba’s zest for life and vivacity seconds only to Roberto Benigni himself! (Life Is Beautiful). This is a classic black and white movie! I cannot express how I recommend this movie! In this school of life, Zorba should be mandatory movie to all mankind to watch!” (Internet Movie Database). Let’s look closer at Cacoyannis’s script, which, once again, is an adaptation. The novel by Nikos Kazantzakis sets up Alexis Zorba as the free spirit he becomes in the film as well. But more so than the film, the novel is basically a “spiritual odyssey” about a “bookish” narrator (Nikos Kazantzakis casting much of himself in fiction) who is torn between the major religions and political beliefs of the world and is also shy about women to boot. In short, this is not the kind of novel one would call written for the screen, especially since most of it is internal monologue from the bookish narrator’s point of view. I want to highlight three points Cacoyannis hit in working out his script that made it a successful “worldwide” film.

Switching the main character’s nationality from Greek to British to create a more “international” viewpoint

The narrator of the novel, like author Nikos Kazantzakis himself, is a Greek fromtheislandofCretewhoisreturningafteryearsofbeingaway.Thus,the novel is a kind of homecoming, like Homer’s Odyssey (note that Kazantzakis also wrote his own sequel to Homer’s work, called The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, which is in poetic form and twice the length of Homer’s epic). But as a Hollywood-backed international production, Cacoyannis’s

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script makes a significant “global” change by turning the main character into a young Englishman who has inherited property in Crete. This simple but significant change cleverly places all of us in the audience in the “fish out of water” situation of the narrator (played with appealing restraint by a very young Alan Bates). We, too, experience the repressive culture of village life in Crete, feeling the same shock with which the narrator takes it in. And, simultaneously, as “outsiders” we appreciate the carnivalesque love of life we observe in Zorba, who himself has become global in his influences, embracing people as people, not as nationalities.

Actually drawing from ancient Greek drama to heighten both the visuals and the drama of the film

What most viewers remember from Zorba the Greek are the twin emotions of joy, represented by Zorba’s exuberant dancing, and horror, at the stoning to death of the widow played by Irene Papas. Both elements are powerfully “dramatic,” and both reflect not only Kazantzakis’s novel but Cacoyannis’s work on the stage and on film with ancient Greek tragedy. Remember that ancient Greek drama—both comedy and tragedy—made creative use of the chorus to comment on and play off of the few main actors taking center stage, be they Oedipus or Agamemnon or, in comedy, Aristophanes’ feisty figures, such as Lysistrata. The memorable ending of the film, when Zorba dances with the “boss” (Alan Bates), is a direct echo of the endings of all of Aristophanes’ comedies, as the chorus and characters would dance triumphantly and joyously off the stage. It is important to note that the novel does not end with such a scene but with Zorba’s death, years later, and the narrator’s receiving a letter from Zorba’s new wife, a young pregnant Serbian girl, who recounts Zorba’s end in their home in Skopje, Macedonia. Thus, in shaping the screenplay for this Greek but also global script, Cacoyannis built on ancient models. That goes even more clearly for the very strong scenes in which the widow is stalked and killed for sleeping with a

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stranger (and, in the film, a “foreigner” at that). The novel is very direct, too, but the way in which Cacoyannis writes and films these scenes brings out the village men as a kind of evil Greek chorus, bent on repressing their women. Yet Cacoyannis also builds this sense into the death sequences surrounding an old French prostitute, Dame Hortense. Even more so than in the novel, Cacoyannis’s script and film have brought out the old women in black of the village hanging in the background, awaiting the old harlot’s death so that they can swarm in on her rooms, as they do in the film, stripping them bare in their greed to leave really no trace of her existence other than her corpse. The chilling power of this scene is absolutely like the kind of scene one could see in a modern production of an ancient Greek tragedy, with this difference: in ancient Greek drama the chorus is almost always a collective voice of experience and reason for a community, whereas Nikos Kazantzakis is extremely critical of the small-mindedness of rural Greek communities, exposing the darker sides of Greek behavior. As one critic has written, comparing Cacoyannis to Euripides, “Both Cacoyannis and Euripides show the world the extent to which ‘civilized’ men can be barbaric” (McDonald 9).

Emphasizing the character and friendship of Zorba through dance and music

In a very real sense Zorba the Greek is a kind of “buddy film” made a handful of years before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the other films that followed that helped define this “subgenre.” Male friendship is at the heart of the novel and the film, as the narrator in the book and the young Englishman in the script become best friends with Alexis Zorba and find their lives changed because of the contact. We have already mentioned how much the dancing in Cacoyannis’s script and film reflects ancient drama, especially ancient Greek comedy. That is also true of the music, which is written into the script as an important dimension and brought to memorable fruition in the much-loved soundtrack by Mikis Theodorakis, Greece’s leading composer, who is himself from Crete.

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In global terms Hollywood and Greece—ancient and modern—come together so well in this film through the use of music to heighten joy and drama. And the dancing comes to be the clearest expression of character in the script to represent Zorba and, finally, the “boss.” I end my discussion of Zorba addressing a difficult question for anyone involved in global screenwriting and filmmaking. Do you aim the project to be in English, or do you keep the language of the country the story is from? I offer no set answer to that question, as this chapter has shown. Crouching Tiger gains, I feel, for being in Chinese. It’s hard to imagine the spell this film casts being as effective if characters were shouting, “Take that, you idiot!” Yet the “Hollywood” element in Zorba is not just the casting but the demand for an English-language film to reach a much larger audience, especially at a time when so few Greek films had ever gained an international following. Of course, as noted above, Cacoyannis was able to “justify” the English, given the nationality switch of the narrator/boss figure from the novel (Greek) to film (a young Englishman). Film Credits

Zorba the Greek (1964). Production company: Twentieth Century Fox. Executive producer: Michael Cacoyannis. Associate producer: Anthony Quinn. Director: Michael Cacoyannis. Screenplay: Michael Cacoyannis, from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. Cinematography: Walter Lasselly. Editor: Michael Cacoyannis. Music: Mikis Theodorakis. Cast: Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, Irene Papas, and Lila Kedrova. 146 minutes. Black and white.

NO MAN’S LAND: MIXING TEARS AND LAUGHTER WITH THE BOSNIAN WAR

What films do I tend to like best? Well, I can get a kick out of everything from I Married a Monster from Outer Space to abstract experimental shorts. But given the choice, I love to watch and to write films that somehow

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make me both laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time or more often in an alternating rhythm of emotions. But how to write such films? Let’s look at one film that gets high marks for such an accomplishment: Two bumbling soldiers from opposing armies hurl insults at each other as one holds a rifle on the other and then in his ineptitude loses control of it, and the other soldier takes control and hurls similar humiliations toward his “prisoner” in an isolated battle trench. The scene is somewhere in Bosnia during the Bosnian War, and the Serb and the Bosnian soldier then discover in their bantering back and forth that they have dated the same woman in a small town in Bosnia. Combining both slapstick farce and ironic humor (“You dated her too?”) coming from so-called “enemies,” Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic’s 2001 film No Man’s Land walked off with Hollywood’s Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The bestowing of this coveted award on a “Balkan film” that appeared as a darkly comic antiwar statement caught many by surprise. Most of these were expecting the award to go to the quirky French “feel good” farce Amélie. Tanovic’s tragic comedy about the Bosnian War, which he had lived through personally as a young Bosnian soldier, suddenly caught the attention of the millions watching the Academy Awards show Oscar night in March 2002. My point for screenwriters everywhere is a simple one: don’t be afraid to create memorable stories from tales that mix humor and hard times, comedy and crisis. After all, isn’t such a mixture of emotions closer to real life than are the convenient formulas served up by so many Hollywood genre films? What Tanovic and other Balkan filmmakers, such as Emir Kusturica of Bosnia (Do You Remember Dolly Bell? [1981], When Father Was Away on Business [1985], Time of the Gypsies [1988], Arizona Dream [1993], Underground [2000], and Black Cat, White Cat [2001]), who have lived through the recent wars in Bosnia and Kosovo have to teach screenwriters around the world is that the twin muses of laughter and drama often cross paths in touching and hilarious ways that affect us more than scripts written purely for one genre.

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Remember that when Socrates and Aristophanes were ending their evening of fine conversation and wine in Plato’s Symposium, they agreed that tragedy and comedy share many roots that cross each other. Far too often, we writers forget this valuable observation. Of course, Balkan screenwriters are not the only storytellers who have mined this truth. Global examples include, from Italy, Roberto Benigni and Vincenzo Certami’s Life Is Beautiful, which dared to take on the Holocaust with humor dark and life affirming; and from the States so many of the Coen brothers’ scripts mix muses, as, for example, in Fargo, when we laugh out loud as human body parts grind through a wood-chopping machine on a pristine winter’s day; and from the Czech Republic, Zdenek Sverak’s Oscar-winning script for Kolya provides scenes both hilarious and tearful as it takes on the closing years of the Russian occupation and its effect on a middle-aged bachelor musician and a Russian boy. But I want to take a closer look at Tanovic’s craft and technique, for it may challenge each of us to go beyond the usual boundaries of approaches we take in our writing. What No Man’s Land possesses and shares with so many films of the Balkans is a special blending of humor and horror, of the comic and the tragic, embracing verbal and physical/visual dimensions that are emblematic of a cultural spirit. Here are five craft pointers we can learn from Tanovic’s and other Balkan films that may well work for our own scripts: Comedy in the larger sense means some form of “triumph,” not necessarily laughter.

A sense of “comic triumph” in a spiritual vein has existed in the cultures of the Balkans and especially the former Yugoslavia. The epic poems of Serbia, for instance, celebrate the Serbian spiritual victory over the conquering Turks during the Battle of Kosovo in the fourteenth century. The Turks, such poems declare, only murdered and destroyed Serbs as living creatures, not as Christians and spiritual beings.

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Irony is a powerful tool for any screenwriter and for almost every script.

Equally important to the sense of comedy of these cultures is a very strong sense of irony. We know that irony thrives on highlighting the discrepancy between that which could or might be and that which is. As practiced by Balkan filmmakers, irony often calls forth both tears and laughter as we “get” the difference between ideals and harsh realities, dreams and history. The much-celebrated director Emir Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies provides us with a clear example of such dark yet comic irony. Based on newspaper reportage of actual Yugoslav gypsies who not only worked in crime organizations throughout Italy but who also sold their own children into slavery, prostitution, and crime, the film tracks one young boy’s odyssey from Yugoslavia to Italy in a Godfather-like tale (there are, in fact, many direct references to Coppola’s crime trilogy). As Kusturica’s film ends, the young gypsy mafioso protagonist is murdered, and at the funeral his five-year-old son steals the coins placed over his father’s eyes (an ancient custom) and runs out of the house. We can’t help but laugh at the son stealing from his dead father, but on the other hand it is a “triumph,” for the son has learned to follow in his father’s footsteps: to be a good thief! Such a moment is ironic, humorous, tragic, and triumphant at the same time.

Open up a serious subject/issue with a simple, “absurd” (exaggerated) incident that mirrors the whole subject.

In No Man’s Land two men in tattered boxer shorts wave handkerchiefs as they shout and dance about in an open field. They could easily make us laugh if this were all we knew about them. But they happen to be on a Bosnian battlefield, and the troops on either side refuse to shoot because no one knows which side they’re on. It’s a moment of joyful but darkly ironic laughter in Tanovic’s film. What we understand is that the opposing armies don’t know that one of the two men is a Bosnian and the other a Serb. Yet without uni-

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forms they simply appear to be two guys taking time off from war to have fun. The time setting of Tanovic’s film is late in the Bosnian conflict, after the Dayton Peace Accords, when thousands of UN peacekeeping troops were in place. The location is an isolated battle trench in which an inexperienced Serbian soldier, Nino (played by Croatian actor Rene Bitorajac), and a cynical Bosnian soldier, Ciki (played by Bosnian actor Branko Djuric), wind up holding each other prisoner in a dangerous standoff in “no man’s land” between Bosnian and Serbian lines. Such is the simple yet effective setup for Tanovic’s film. But this is only the beginning of what is contained in this unusual antiwar film.

Devise a strong plot “twist” that amplifies the situation/topic you wish to explore.

Tanovic adds one more narrative element that drives his engaging tale in both comic and tragic directions: between the opposing soldiers is a Bosnian “corpse” with a land mine underneath him that will explode if the body is moved. The final twist is that the corpse is actually only unconscious and awakens to his tragic reality that threatens all three of the soldiers. Cera, the “corpse” (Croatian actor Filip Sovagovic), is only wounded and has been placed on the mine as a dangerous “joke” by two Serbs as a trap for any Bosnians finding their fellow soldier. And surrounding both warring sides is the UN, which continually says, “We are here to keep the peace but we are not allowed to do anything or get involved.” Tanovic’s deftly executed film should make viewers everywhere uneasy about even those United Nations members who wish to be active in keeping peace rather than passively “camping out” in a troubled land. The film clearly echoes the tragedy of Srebrenica, for instance, where without protest UN forces allowed Serbs to take thousands of Bosnian refugees from UN camps to their execution and disposal in mass graves.

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Make sure you have a distinctive subplot to further amplify your thematic concerns.

The mixed drama and dark comedy of the three men in “no man’s land” then becomes forgotten as the real power struggle is between CNN-like media giants and the UN administrators who want to maintain a “good image.” Tanovic’s savagely satirical point is well taken. With the UN forces arriving in Bosnia too late to save the lives of several hundred thousand innocent women, children, and aged folk, not to mention warring military, the Allied Forces were still not given permission to “act” in ways that could have stopped or averted further conflicts, killings, and acts of destruction. That no overwhelming international outcry has emerged concerning the slaughter of thousands of innocent Chechens by Russians during the past few years is clearly explained by the absence of a similar group of international journalists covering the Chechen-Russian conflict. The second half of No Man’s Land goes far beyond any of the current Hollywood war films in revealing this “second war” connected to any war being conducted these days. Again, we are speaking of the conflict between peacekeeping troops and the often ambiguous role of the media in covering such action when the terms “fast-breaking” and “shocking” are more important than in-depth or thorough coverage. No happy ending comes of all of these efforts in Tanovic’s film. Even the German antimine expert brought in by the UN throws up his hands, explaining that a mine of this sort, situated as it is and “activated,” cannot be deactivated. I do not wish to spoil the actual ending between Nino and Ciki for those who have not seen the film. But it is fair to explain that the final shot begins with a close-up of our wounded Bosnian on the mine—still alive and conscious but now abandoned by all. The camera becomes a rising crane shot that ends up being one of the most satisfying examples of how a single shot can capture mood, theme, and even a metaphor in a film. Cera will surely die, for there is no solution for his “explosive” situation. And his ending is all the more tragic because of the stoic expression on his

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face as he accepts (what else to do?) the fact that the whole situation—for Bosnia, the peacekeepers, and the media—is so absurd that no crying, shouting, or protest would do any good. Finally, that Tanovic leaves us with the bomb yet to explode, metaphorically and thematically, suggests that this war and all that is related to it, on political and cultural levels, is not over. The peacekeepers are still in place, and there is still no real peace. A happy ending? Certainly not. The point, however, is that with such a serious topic Tanovic’s multiple uses of humor, irony, slapstick, and comedy have all worked together to help us both feel the pain more intensely and at the same time gain some perspective on it. This is screenwriting at a very high level, indeed. As we wrap, let’s face once more that we are living in a “post–September 11 world,” and, as writers and individuals, we are still trying to figure out in our own lives and work what that means. Some are escaping into writing patriotic war movies in which Americans kill hundreds and thousands of foreigners “heroically,” as in, for example, Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers. And straight-on comedy, from Mr. Deeds to Goldmember, once more proves that in hard times people do want a laugh that will help them forget their troubles if only for a few hours. Film Credits

No Man’s Land (2001). Producer: Marc Baschet. Director: Danis Tanovic. Screenplay: Danis Tanovic. Cinematography: Walther van den Ende. Editor: Francesca Calvelli. Production design: Dusko Milavec. Original music: Danis Tanovic. Cast: Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajeac, Filip Sovagovic, and Georges Siatidis. 94 minutes. Color.

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING: WHY MOST PEOPLE FEEL THEY BELONG TO A CRAZY FAMILY

My Big Fat Greek Wedding surprised everyone in 2002, becoming the largest box office success of any independent film ever by bringing in more

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than three hundred million dollars by year’s end, a rather staggering amount for a film that cost roughly five million dollars to make. No need for a long plot summary, since even those who didn’t see the film say they feel as if they’ve seen it! An overweight Greek American gal (Nia Vardalos) falls in love with a non-Greek (John Corbett), who thus sets off family feuds as our hapless couple heads toward marriage, and Corbett submits to conversion to the Greek Orthodox faith. By film’s end, however, not only is a wedding celebrated and family squabbles buried, but the couple winds up living in a house provided by Toula’s folks . . . next door to her childhood home (yes, this does set us up for the sequel). A kind of Greek Muriel’s Wedding fairy tale meets Four Weddings and a Funeral in the American suburbs, Vardalos’s film (directed by Joel Zwick and coproduced by Tom Hanks) proved a crowd pleaser across generations and genders, as grandparents and grandchildren, as well as young people, crowded theaters for screenings. I even heard of university sororities requiring members to see it together. As one viewer commented on the Internet Movie Database Web site, “This film will make you laugh and make you cry, but most importantly, it will make you ‘feel.’ ” In all fairness, however, many critics thought quite differently. David Denby in the New Yorker, for instance, comments, “The depressing part of the story is that Wedding is not all that different from a sitcom” (99). Actually, nobody has claimed the script or the film is a masterpiece, but clearly it’s great entertainment that has a simple message of hope and celebrates family life during an era when so many families are broken, separated, or almost nonexistent. Thus Denby may not have realized his criticism of the film as a “sitcom” is actually a foreshadowing of what did develop not long after the film’s success: the emergence of the TV sitcom of the same name! For screenwriters thinking and writing “globally” there is much to celebrate in playwright/actress Nia Vardalos’s adaptation of her own onewoman play for the screen. Here are three lessons to take home from this hilarious romantic social comedy.

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Don’t be afraid to write ethnic!

What Greek Americans can we remember in an American film? Certainly in line with the theme of this book, Vardalos has not been afraid to take chances and to cross “boundaries” between images of homogenized “Americans” and to speak about the one ethnic group she knows very well because of her roots. She is not the first to do so, for certainly we can point, for instance, to a film like Mississippi Masala (1992), by Mira Nair, which sets a romance between a young woman from India and a black southerner in the contemporary Deep South. And we can even speak of how the Coen brothers “introduced” Scandinavian Americans to the big screen in Fargo (1996). In an even more straightforward way, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is quite refreshing in its blatant representation of this group within America that represents millions. Thus, we have Vardalos’s social comedy of an ethnic group that is both American and Greek and that we both laugh at and with.

The universal truth that “families are all alike basically” transcends any real sense of “Them” and “Us.”

The New York Times carried an editorial letter about the film written by a Mexican American woman, Carolyn Curiel, who identified completely with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She explains how she lived in two worlds, that of her “Mexican” home life and that of her “American” social life. According to Curiel, while viewing the film she felt she “shared a vein of experiences with the main character, the daughter of immigrants, played by the screenplay’s author, Nia Vardalos. That’s why I was laughing. But all around me in the theater, people of various backgrounds found their own connection, nodding and chuckling as this tale of love and family and clashing cultures struck chords about a diverse America, one in which only the most insulated would mistake Greek for Guatemalan, as one character does” (22). On one hand we can say My Big Fat Greek Wedding is an “ensemble

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comedy” because it is peppered with so many minor characters who are family members or friends. But at the center of all is the “family” in the extended sense of relatives and not just parents and children. Humor and pathos both come out of the love-hate situations that pour off the screen nonstop in Vardalos’s witty and broad comic lines, situations, and clashes. Yet again we recognize that “Nobody’s perfect” (to recall the final line of Some Like It Hot), and this is a large part of what we enjoy in such a comedy, with its ethnic flavor giving us an extra bonus.

The Cinderella formula is open to global variations and is character centered.

Much of My Big Fat Greek Wedding is broad farcical comedy, but at the center of all is Toula, who is clearly a Cinderella figure—vulnerable and misunderstood by those around her—but she is Cinderella with a twist: her family actually loves her more, when push comes to shove, than they love their illusions of how “Greek” they must be living in a “foreign” (read American) culture. We see the story through her eyes, and this is what pulls us into her world. It is a first-person story, a woman’s story, and we care because we want her to be able to survive and, finally, thrive, combining her love and family, baklava and scotch. Once more I think it is fascinating that in an era of mistrust and fear spread by terrorism, cinema and storytelling come together to suggest that mixing cultures and reaching out globally can and will succeed in bringing people together. Certainly we can expect that Big Fat Chinese, Mexican, African, and Balkan weddings will follow. Film Credits

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Producers: Paul Brooks, David Coatsworth, Gary Goetzman, and Tom Hanks. Director: Joel Zwick. Screenplay: Nia Vardalos. Cinematography: Jeff Jur. Editor: Mia Goldman. Production design: Gregory Keen. Original music: Xandy Janko

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and Chris Wilson. Cast: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, and Andrea Martin. 98 minutes. Color.

THE SOPRANOS: CHEKHOV AND SOPHOCLES MEET THE GODFATHER

A father takes his high school senior daughter on a trip to visit New England colleges before applying to them and along the way murders an old enemy while the daughter is taking a campus tour. Thus we have the outline of just one episode of the popular HBO series The Sopranos, which traces the hugely contradictory life of Tony Soprano (indelibly portrayed by James Gandolfini), a New Jersey mob boss. Just when many television writers began to despair that Survivor-styled “reality” shows and simply bad episodic shows would rule the future of American and, indeed, international television, The Sopranos appeared. Created by David Chase, the writer-director whose credits include work on Northern Exposure, The Rockford Files, and I’ll Fly Away, The Sopranos ran a first season (1999–2000) of thirteen episodes that took the country by surprise. Suddenly there was a show that, as New York Times critic Stephen Holden notes, had the force of The Godfather but also had “the force of Greek tragedy. Or is it a Chekhov comedy replayed in the foul-mouthed street language of New Jersey hoodlums?” (Holden, “New York Times” on “The Sopranos,” xi). What is the key premise of this remarkable series? Simple: a Mafia boss also tries to live a “normal” American upper-middle-class East Coast family life. It is the contrast, conflict, and interaction of these two worlds that holds our rapt attention. For as Holden rightly sums up, “The Sopranos, more than any American television show, looks, feels, and sounds like real life as it’s lived and experienced in the United States in the cluttered environment of the Internet, mall shopping, rap music, and a runaway stock market” (ibid.). My inclusion of The Sopranos under global screenwriting therefore suggests the multilayered echoes that such finely tuned writing exhibits. Critic

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Vincent Canby goes further in applauding the show’s originality, comparing it to European television classics, such as Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective (Britain, 1988) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (Germany, 1980), and exploring how The Sopranos suggests the best of films interacting with a television format (Canby 59). For although everyone “gets” that the show owes much to Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, the real point is that rather than simply being a new television series, The Sopranos, in tone, scope, and quality, is really a “megamovie.” European countries have long worked in a “middle ground” between film and television in ways that The Sopranos is moving toward, as Canby suggests. I am speaking of a tradition of writing and filming simultaneously a feature film and a miniseries for television to be released six to nine months after a film has had its first run in the cinemas, as I mentioned in the first chapter in regard to my own first film, Something in Between. We end this chapter with The Sopranos because the show serves not only as an example of fine television writing, and as a landmark case of how film and television are blending and playing off each other in ever changing ways, but also as an example of how a work can be “global” in its texture, implications, themes, and character development rather than by direct use of foreign or multicultural sources or multinational writing teams. All the writers under David Chase’s keen eye are Americans, yet the critics are unanimous in how “international” the feel and effects of these intensely funny and dramatic episodes are. Consider five elements that make the writing of The Sopranos something “other” than American television screenwriting as we have known it.

Going for a thirteen-episode season rather than the traditional twenty-six episodes of most shows

As we have noted above, this fact alone puts the show in a new category that really can’t be called a “miniseries” or a regular show. It has simply redefined what a “season” can and may mean on national television.

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Fusing dark comedy and crime drama so completely

Traditionally, on American television, crime shows and sitcoms have been kept apart with little or no real overlap. The sitcom is based on comedy surrounding American families, the traditional viewing audience. But The Sopranos is yet a further extension of changes in American comedy as sitcoms of the 1980s and 1990s moved toward ensemble shows such as Cheers, Friends, and Seinfeld rather than family-based shows. Like films such as Pulp Fiction and Run Lola Run, The Sopranos manages to provide laughing-out-loud comic moments punctuated by extreme violence, yet all are tied to character revelation. The result is a unique blend of the two approaches, which Vincent Canby reminds us means The Sopranos, “which plays as a dark comedy, possesses a tragic conscience” (67).

Increasing violence, but violence with a point rather than gratuitous violence

In the third season (2001) the fear of the producers was clearly that Tony Soprano was becoming too popular as a likeable guy despite his mob life. Thus, a show that was already pushing the envelope on levels of violence upped the stakes steeply. Tony almost murders his girlfriend in a scene that could only play on cable television. But as Caryn James points out, the violence is not simply added for shock value. According to James, “On The Sopranos, every act of violence comes directly from and offers a comment on Tony’s life” (“Brutally Honest” B6).

Creating richly nuanced characters not only for the protagonist— Tony Soprano—but all the others as well

Everyone credits the fine writing that brings out so many contradictory aspects of Tony Soprano’s character. He is the dutiful son with a hateful mother; he is trying hard to be a good husband, but he indulges in mistresses and lovers; he wishes to be a caring father, even if it means trying to

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murder a high school soccer coach so that he won’t take another job; and he tries to be friends with many of his colleagues, even when mob business pushes him into actions that contradict all his efforts. But the same care and skill go into each character’s development. Let’s mention Tony’s mother, Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand), as just one shining example. As Caryn James comments, “When the series began (1999), Mama Livia Soprano was an irascible old woman, addled and comic enough to hit her best friend accidentally with a car” (“Addicted to a Mob Family Potion” 25). But as the seasons have progressed, she has become “a matriarchal figure rooted in Greek tragedy and Roman history” (ibid.). Her name, for instance, is a clue, for it is the same as the ruthless grandmother of Emperor Claudius. Portraying a diverse ethnic mixture of characters

The Sopranos is not just a television version of Italian American gangsters. Creator David Chase has drawn from the richly ethnic neighborhoods he grew up in around northern New Jersey. There are Czech criminals and Russian prostitutes in many episodes, as well as Polish sausage shops, Irish bars, Jewish shops, black neighborhoods, Italian restaurants, and Portuguese bakeries. Global characters and tastes fill the screen in every episode. And they are all part of New Jersey. As Chase says about the multicultural society he has captured in his show, “I knew I lived someplace special. I knew it was not like any place else” (Strum 18). Film Credits

The Sopranos (1999– ). Production companies: HBO, Chase Films, Soprano Productions. Executive producer: David Chase. Directors: David Chase, Daniel Attias, Henry Bronchtein, et al. Screenplays by David Chase, Daniel Attias, Mitchell Burgess, et al. Cinematography: Phil Abraham, Alik Sakharov. Editors: Joanna Cappuccilli, William Stich, et al. Cast: James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco, et al. 60 minutes per episode. Color.

pa rt t wo

A Carnival of Worldwide Screenwriters

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You are about to read articles by screenwriters from England, New Zealand, the Cherokee Nation (yes, Native American tribes are nations), Nebraska-Hollywood (a new nation), the United States, and Kazakhstan. I feel sure you will gain as much as I have from this carnival of voices speaking out on screenwriting around the world. Put simply, they inspire us. For there is no way to predict which voices will speak most directly to you as you go through this section of the book. Let me repeat that many but not all of those gathered here came together for a few glorious days in November 2000 at a global screenwriting conference held on the University of Oklahoma campus. Ideas, stories, pitches, and battle tales of films made or lost or nearly lost and movies that became triumphant were shared and carried home. New friendships were formed and new projects begun. No one could ask for more. And we all spoke the same language: screenwriting, screenwriting, screenwriting.

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chapter 4

New Zealand Moving Beyond a National Cinema andrea bosshard

We New Zealanders live a particularly uncomfortable contradiction. Although we convey a “fuck you all” attitude, we care very deeply about what others think of us. So stories that are recognizably, even overtly, New Zealand in character are the call of the day, but they must not be so New Zealand that they exclude an overseas market. Such are the contradictory threads that we must somehow resolve as screenwriters in this country. Let me be more specific. As New Zealanders, we tend to suffer from that excruciating condition of wanting to be recognized for our uniqueness, and it pervades all aspects of our lives. Like children, we revel in being the first, the best, or having the biggest. New Zealand athletes were berated for bringing back only one gold medal from the 2000 Olympics. It is a nationalism that runs in our blood and binds us to the universals that connect all people. It is a nationalism, I think, that results from a deeply ingrained sense of inferiority, a sense that we are not quite up to par with the rest of the world. As a nation-state New Zealand is very young, colonized by Europeans about 150 years ago. And for a long time New Zealanders saw themselves simply as offshore Brits. All New Zealand’s primary produce—meat, but97

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ter, and wool—was absorbed as a matter of course by England. But when England joined the European Economic Community in 1975, New Zealand, the colonial child, was effectively abandoned by the mother. And this, above all, provoked the beginning of a positive exploration into what constitutes a New Zealand culture and, on the other hand, this childish preoccupation with wanting to prove ourselves in the eyes of the world— the “look at me” syndrome. And how to attract that attention? Through our preoccupation with the physical. A characteristic of New Zealand cinema has been the notion of “man alone,” the masculine character who must fight his physical environment in order to survive, the man who can turn a piece of numbereight fencing wire into anything—what is now somewhat nostalgically called “kiwi ingenuity”—being able to make do, be a jack-of-all-trades, and turn one’s hand to whatever is required. This mind-set has its roots in our colonial past, where colonists were faced with a land that, in their eyes, needed a strong and taming hand. So the landscape itself has become a character in much New Zealand cinema. John Grierson, the founder of the English documentary movement, noted this point in a 1940 report to the New Zealand government on state filmmaking entitled “The Face of a New Zealander.” He said, “I knew about your mountains and glaciers, your tree ferns and your sheep country. I knew a dozen times over from your films how butter was made and a dozen times over that it always seems to be called ‘Solid Sunshine’ ” (21). Even now, we have not taken heed of Grierson’s comment that “I do not mind saying even to New Zealanders that every country has its own special beauty” (22). We continue to live under the delusion that American film companies are filming in New Zealand because of the wonderful scenery. The reality is that there have been until very recently some exceedingly lucrative but not widely known tax loopholes that enabled big-budget American productions to effectively be bankrolled by the New Zealand public. Add to this that wages in New Zealand are significantly lower than in the States. This situation was brought home to me when a friend, a camera operator,

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was told by an American film colleague on the set of Vertical Limit, “Remember, you’re just Mexicans with cell phones!” “Do not be ashamed,” Grierson went on to say, “to describe your problems and what you are doing about your problems. Remember we are pretty imperfect ourselves, and if you appear always in the spit and polish of perfection, we know very quickly that you are either inhuman or are liars” (22). Subconsciously, I think, we have taken this attitude to heart, but in the most literal way. Instead of exploring the New Zealand landscape, we now explore the physical human landscape, the exterior, not the interior. Let it all hang out—the inarticulate superficial New Zealander whose every second word is fuck—“fuck this, fuck that, it’s a fucking great movie, it’s a fucking dog of a movie. Fucking Yanks, fucking Brits.” We hate them, and we love and admire them. New Zealand screen characters tend to be one dimensional and to see the world in black and white. Our secondary characters are more often than not caricatures, and dialogue is seen as an unnecessary part of communication. So our psyche remains fixated on the physical, on the exterior, manifesting itself in New Zealand cinema as a tendency to celebrate the uncouth and to regard anything of an ethereal, emotional, or intellectual nature with deep suspicion. This is the environment in which I work. The idea of a national cinema, however, is not one in which I am particularly interested. I have always been interested more in what connects people than in what separates them. In Andrew Horton’s book Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay Horton talks about story endings falling into two categories—the embrace and the loner (85). As an optimist interested in connection I believe that my stories have more often than not ended with an embrace. And when I look at my work, whether made into a film or not, there is this consistent theme of people struggling for connection, people of different cultures, different generations, different sexes battling it out for the final embrace. As a child I had already seen some of the great film classics because my parents, culturally understimulated in a small Canterbury town in the late

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1960s and 1970s, had set up a local film society. They, along with us kids in our pajamas, were often the only audience. So at a very young age I saw Battleship Potemkin, Nanook of the North, Harlan County USA, Salt of the Earth, Birth of a Nation, La Strada, and The Battle of Chile, among others. These early viewing experiences left a strong imprint on me. Filmmaking for me has always meant storytelling about history and politics, about the role that social upheaval, injustice, and inequality have in altering the paths people take through life. So from a young age, too, I developed an instinctive sense of internationalism, a sense that the struggles of the miners in Harlan County USA and Salt of the Earth were the same struggles as the New Zealand waterside workers in 1951 and the New Zealand timber workers in 1979. This concern with connection, with seeking the points of intersection, was probably compounded, too, by my own bicultural background with a Swiss father and a New Zealand mother. Thus, at an early age I opened up to both the comedy and the pain that can arise out of two different cultures coming together. Since 1985 I have been making short films, initially documentaries only but later short dramas, as a part of a group called Vanguard Films. The oldest film company in the country, Vanguard has lasted by defying fashion and market-driven ideology. We have continued an independent leftwing documentary tradition and have not seen such storytelling as conditional on returning costs, let alone making a profit. For me the big step has been from writing short dramas of approximately twenty minutes to writing a feature-length script. Not fitting into the actively peddled culture of the pacey plot-driven ten-minute film, my stories and films have always been slower paced and character centered, attributes I have had to defend. And at this timely moment Andrew Horton turned up in Wellington, teaching a course in feature screenwriting. Out of this university course came my script The Great Maiden’s Blush, which I am hopeful will be filmed. In New Zealand we have what is called a script development scheme. This is where scripts at various stages, from initial idea to fully drafted

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script, are submitted to the New Zealand Film Commission by producers for development finances. This money is loaned to the writer via a producer attached to the project to enable further development. Hence the importance of producers in the New Zealand film industry. One can’t move without an approved producer attached to a script. My script The Great Maiden’s Blush went to the development committee of the New Zealand Film Commission as a completed first draft. What the funding I received has positively meant is that I haven’t had to do parttime work and have been able to concentrate exclusively on writing a new draft. One of the downsides of this script development process has been that because of a lack of confidence and knowledge on behalf of the panel, and its continually changing composition, many scripts keep going back time after time for one more draft, then another, and yet another, until, often, the initial spark and spontaneity of a script is completely extinguished. Or a script may go round the full circle to come back to the original first draft. The story that one wants to tell as a screenwriter and filmmaker is easily eroded in this committee-centered approach, a case of rather too many cooks. In a very small and insular filmmaking community such as New Zealand, with the Film Commission being the major source of funding, along with what I think is an unhealthy emphasis on making profits (which in reality has occurred with only two or three films funded by the commission), there can be, I think, a tendency to write what we think the commission will finance. Particular types of overseas films become fashionable, and there is a rather naïve belief that we can somehow reproduce such formulas in New Zealand. On another front, one of the most difficult things I have encountered in the process of screenwriting is not being able to get solid constructive criticism. This is because fashion dictates not only the film types and story lines but also the criticism one gets. Both Linda Seeger and Robert McGee have given workshops in New Zealand during the past fifteen years, and

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although they both offer a lot of good material, they are structuralists, and there is more to good cinema than simply structure. They have, to date, provided the only script-writing doctrine that has been considered acceptable by many. But their approaches have not yielded the goods in New Zealand. That odd duality here of the New Zealand psyche—our brashness coupled with our sense of inadequacy—has meant we have developed a tendency to uncritically welcome what the rest of the First World, particularly the United States, may choose to offer us. Aside from this problem, however, a greater issue is that very few people in New Zealand have a thorough grounding in script analysis of any sort. In keeping with our suspicion of the intellectual, and our admiration of doers rather than thinkers, there exists within our very small film community neither the language nor the tools to analyze/criticize screenplays in other than a very general, and thus very unhelpful, way. There is a distinct reluctance, particularly on the part of producers—a result, I think, of inexperience and a lack of confidence in their own opinions—to be intelligently unequivocal about a script. Producers are scared to say “yes” because the script may be a turkey, and they are scared to say “no” because the script could be the next Piano. Like many other first-time feature screenwriters, I have waited politely for months for producers to read my scripts and get back to me. Unwritten notions that there are right and proper ways to tell a story or portray particular types of characters create a fear of exploration and a tendency to stick to the safety of convention, cliché, caricature, and genre. In New Zealand for some years—particularly in relation to The Piano and Once Were Warriors—there has been heated debate on how to appropriately portray Maori characters on-screen. And the debate centers not on racist vs. nonracist depictions but on whether negative images of Maori should be shown at all (for instance, the violent alcoholic character Jake in Once Were Warriors). Or do writers and filmmakers have an obligation to provide positive role models for a race of people who have been victims of colonization and its attendant unemployment, violence, drug abuse, and

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criminality? With a few honorable exceptions the solution in New Zealand has been to sidestep anything controversial. I have been particularly lucky in having Dr. Russell Campbell, of the film program at Victoria University and a member of Vanguard Films for the past twenty-five years, as a script adviser on all of my scripts. He has the ability to take the script and, without trying to turn it into something it is not, to pinpoint problems in a detailed way and suggest ways of overcoming them. I have had to develop strategies to shield myself as much as possible from the negativity and mediocrity that pervade the film arena. I have found two or three people for whom I have great respect, a respect founded not only on their abilities as filmmakers but also, just as important, for their ability to immerse themselves in life—people who are highly literate, who understand the importance of history, and who are not swayed by fashion. To these people I listen carefully. These are the people in New Zealand whom I trust, but even so, they have not had an easy time. Because of their fierce independence they have themselves been marginalized by the official film institutions. I no longer go and see New Zealand films simply because they are New Zealand films. I no longer read Film Commission promotionals of their latest splatter, zombie, westie (a New Zealand genre of light comedy set in the working-class suburbs of West Auckland), or psychopathic-killer film. I am reminded of the English novelist Joyce Cary, who developed a similar strategy. His wife read all the reviews of his novels, handing on to him only the ones she felt would be useful. Maybe we all need and deserve such a spouse. I don’t have a wife, but I have a garden that I began from scratch several years ago. I spend a lot of time both working in and simply being in it. And sometimes, as I potter away among the plants, I am filled with this feeling of the massive chasm that exists between the real world and New Zealand cinema. In my garden I have a rose called Sombreuil. I found out recently that

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it was named in 1850 after a young heroine of the French Revolution who was reputed to have drunk a glass of the blood of an aristocrat to prove the nonaristocratic status of her father. The same day, I saw a photograph in the newspaper that affected me deeply. It showed a terrified Palestinian man trying to shield his equally terrified twelve-year-old son from Israeli bullets. The child was killed, and the father somehow survived. Stories are everywhere. Conflict and brutality exist in sufficient quantity in the real world and with such intensity that only those insensitive to human experience can ignore them. That’s why zombies and psychopaths do nothing for me. They are unconnected and unaffected by the real world, existing in an emotional, social, and psychological vacuum. I am not interested in stories that are not grounded in reality, that take no interest in exploring the human condition. As I grow older, and view the world less dogmatically, so, too, have the characters in my stories become more complex and contradictory within themselves. Furthermore, the actual act of storytelling has become a fundamental element in my last two scripts. To a great extent I have felt an outsider in the New Zealand film industry, mainly because my own interests have not been the same as the industry’s or as the funding bodies’ at large. The preoccupation with technology leaves me cold, as does the obsession with plot over character, the avoidance of history and politics in our stories, the denial of sensitivity, a tendency toward the lightweight, and another trend toward extreme cruelty and violence that is particularly prevalent in New Zealand’s short films. I don’t know whether I am ahead of or behind the times. But whichever, I have certainly felt very removed from much of the New Zealand film scene; thus, although I have been frustrated, I have made attempts to rationalize the situation. Perhaps because the New Zealand film industry is still so young, we can say it is going through phases that New Zealand literature went through in the 1900s—Maori chiefs and majestic landscapes. Maybe getting over

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this preoccupation with the physical, and what is considered overtly New Zealand, is part of the road to cinematic maturity for us, in the same way that modern New Zealand literature has shed those constraints. Writer and filmmaker Michael Rabiger has said, “Have the courage to be simple.” And this has become one of my guiding lights. Down with the bells and whistles. Down with the gimmicks and veneers. Down with the plot-driven scripts, and let’s be brave enough to tell the stories that will not prove us liars, or stupid, or both.

chapter 5

After Naked Men and Wedding Bells Screenwriting in the United Kingdom in a New Century p h i l pa r k e r

Most people outside the United Kingdom are aware of a new successful crop of films such as Chicken Run; Notting Hill; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; and the massive hit of a few years ago The Full Monty. Some will be aware of the ongoing award-winning dramas and comedy series emerging from British television. However, I suspect few are aware of the sheer scale of change and opportunities now being created in the new U.K. screen landscape. I am not just referring to the growth in delivery systems, with cable only just arriving in most U.K. homes, the massive growth of multiplexes, or the success of new dot-com drama projects such as “Online Caroline” or “It’s your movie.” For although these are all significant, it is the changes in production and the emergence of new production monies that are really opening up the realms of possibilities for screenwriting in the United Kingdom. These changes provide screenwriters and screenwriting tutors with a whole new range of problems and possibilities. To put this subject into some perspective, imagine we are now in 106

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1994—an appropriate year perhaps in which to review the brave new world that, thankfully, never arrived. At this time in the United Kingdom if you wanted to see your screenplay made, there were only two options. You were already famous as a writer/screenwriter, and even then you could only hope to have a low-budget feature made every couple of years at most. Or, if you were working in television, you had either been established for at least ten years—ideally twenty—before you could hope to have an original drama of your own made. In addition, everyone expected you to spend at least five years, and preferably ten, slogging away in soaps before you had a chance at your own show. In comedy you basically had to be an award-winning stand-up comic before anyone would even discuss an idea, let alone read a script. My point is that the opportunities for new voices reaching a new audience were nil. Compare that to more recent developments. From 1998 to 2000 more than three hundred feature films were made and put into distribution. The BBC, the largest single television drama production company in the United Kingdom, has just announced a massive increase in drama budgets, and the other major players are expanding their drama and comedy output in a serious attempt to capture audiences in the new digital age. So it’s a great time for emerging talent. Screenwriters are finally being paid, and everyone is looking at a rosy future. Well, not quite—this is British understatement! In a review of the U.K. film industry in 2000 the Film Council—the government-funded body given the task of creating a sustainable U.K. film industry—concluded there were serious skills and development problems (“Towards a Sustainable Film Industry in the UK,” UK Film Council, London, May 2000). In addition, the majority of television writers spend most of their time complaining in public and in print about the lack of respect and understanding they encounter in television production. The writer may be king in terms of U.K. heritage, and everyone has heard of Shakespeare—in or out of love—but in terms of contemporary screenwriters everything in the screen garden is not rosy.

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The good news is that there are more opportunities. In 2000 alone we saw the launching of two new soaps and a massive increase in series drama on U.K. TV. And in cinema there seems no end in sight for the growth of production, and the dominance of auteur writer/directors is finally behind us. So what are the problems, and how do screenwriters and screenwriting tutors become part of the solution and not just bystanders or, worse, part of the problem? The Film Council identified development as the major weakness within the film industry and as a result has created the largest single national development fund in Europe—£5 million (US$7 million) per annum. In addition, it has set aside £1 million (US$1.4 million) as a training fund for “creative executives” (that is, anyone who works with a writer on developing a screenplay) and screenwriters. The latter is part of an overall training strategy aimed at addressing the underlying weakness of the film business in the United Kingdom—not enough good scripts to match the level of production monies available. This problem, although lacking a government report identifying it, is nonetheless recognized as a major weakness within television production companies as well. Now it is easy to think this is merely a question of taste and a direct result of the blindness of producers/commissioning editors to talent, a truth nearly all screenwriters will subscribe to at some point in their lives. However, reality is slightly less comforting. Anyone who has spent their weekends reading spec screenplays or struggled with a writer for over a year to get a screenplay to work will know that you cannot just open your door, plow through the slush pile, or have dinner with someone famous and expect to find a great screenplay. Great screenplays are created, not found, and the people who create them have to be more than just inspired. So what are the problems in creating great screenplays in the United Kingdom, and what are the lessons to be learned? In order to explain the issues, and keep this overview to a reasonable length, I will confine most of the following analysis to feature films. How-

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ever, it is clear that nearly all the problems outlined below may just as easily be applied to television drama and comedy. The first problem in the United Kingdom is a lack of experienced screenwriters. The lack of opportunities in the past has frozen a generation of writers out of the industry, and the sudden mushrooming of opportunities has promoted people beyond the point where they can creatively deliver. The recruitment of playwrights, radio writers, stand-up comedians, actors, novelists, and so forth goes on apace, but few deliver watchable films, and in the majority of cases they do not even deliver a producible screenplay. This problem is compounded by creative executives, who, realizing that many of these creative writers are not familiar with the nuts and bolts of screenwriting, opt to go with writer/directors (who often know even less than the creative executive about screenplays) because it is easier to deal with one person, especially if the director really just wants to get on and shoot the film. This situation has led to a rash of “auteur” films by default and the rather alarming phenomenon of nearly two hundred directors having made a first film but having little or no chance of making a second. A similar problem has affected inexperienced creative executives, be they script editors, producers, or heads of development, who have found themselves trying to develop screenplays yet have no one to turn to for advice. In a recent seminar of script executives two major production companies admitted they had spent over £200,000 (US$280,000) trying to develop new features and new sitcoms and had absolutely nothing to show for it apart from a collection of seriously flawed screenplays. However, on analyzing the problems, it could be seen that this was largely a result of the inexperience of the development teams in selecting writers and then not knowing how to address the inevitable problems that arose during development. Combined with, and as a direct result of, this lack of experience is a lack of understanding of the art and craft of screenwriting. The fact that over two thousand people—largely creative executives—have attended Robert McKee’s seminars testifies to the fact that knowing story structure alone is

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not enough to create good screenplays. Equally, all those hundreds of directors and producers who have attended the “just go out and do it seminars,” and have ended up with their one film (which no one wants to see), must now be wishing that someone had really told them they needed a good script to start with. The fundamental problem here is that although there have been more than forty books published on screenwriting in the last decade, and a significant growth in script courses, screenwriting is still a relatively new area of human knowledge. There are still whole areas hardly written about— for example, the different types of characterization needed for different genres—and the vast majority of courses are too brief to fully develop a feature-length screenplay. These problems are compounded, as one leading agent put it, by a lack of ambition, and she was not talking about the desire for bigger checks. The television scale of feature-film production in the past, and the dramatic parameters of soaps, has meant that when writers have been asked to think on a bigger scale, or develop a different approach to characterization and plotting, they have found such a task beyond them. The debate about what makes a film a film (as opposed to a television production) has been one of the long running discussions of screen history. However, as many creative executives and successful screenwriters will tell you, the distinction is fundamentally one of scale, not just visual scale but emotional and ideational scale as well. Films play in large cinemas rather than on the small screen because the narrative demands more from the characters and the audience. This can be seen in the extremes of characterization, the life-changing moments, and the scale of visualization that are needed on the big screen, compared with the small moments of soap opera and the static or only slightly changing characters of sitcoms. At the midpoint of the spectrum between cinematic and televisual extremes is the narrative that works as well in the cinema as it does on television. However, away from this middle ground the need to embrace these

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differences is something that must be addressed to create the best for both mediums. As if these skills and craft problems were not enough, the United Kingdom still has a snobbery lurking at the heart of the culture that inhibits screenwriters from engaging fully with the potential of the medium. This fact manifests itself not only in the low regard in which television writing is held as a whole but also in the dislike of genre, the overblown critical acclaim given to the “filmmaker,” and the lack of works written for the mainstream cinema audience. Clearly there are exceptions to this latter point. One thinks, for example, of the Bond franchise, of Kevin and Perry Go Large, and of Spice World. But in a way they prove the point. The first was originally based on novels, and the latter two are based on television and pop personas. The successful original films made for the cinema have been financed in the United States (for example, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Chicken Run). So what can be done to address these problems? It is clear that just having more development monies is not the answer, as has been demonstrated by the failure of earlier European Union development funds to substantially increase the number of successful screenplays or films in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the Film Council has committed itself to a series of new training initiatives and a radically different approach to development on some projects. In the short term there is clearly a need to increase the skills and resources available to those currently doing development. It is envisaged by the council that this will be done through a combination of intensive training courses and the creation of development workshops. The training courses will cover not only the basics of screenwriting but also the fundamentals of working with writers and directors on the development of projects. Development workshops will take two distinct forms but are based on the same underlying principles. These principles are that people working on a project are often too close to it to see the problems or their solutions; that almost anyone can tell you that a screenplay is not working, but the really useful feedback identifies the problem and offers

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solutions; and that all group work has to be highly structured to avoid the dominance of egos. The two types of workshop will be those aimed at providing support for creative executives with projects in active development and those intended to support screenwriters developing their own screenplays. However, beyond these short-term initiatives there is a commitment to creating an overall strategy that will ensure a brand-new level of skills and screenplay writing by 2006. This longer-term strategy aims to provide levels of training and development support ranging from courses for people who are just starting out to development workshops for those working on their latest commissioned work. The lowest level of support will see the encouragement of evening, weekend, and short courses on the basics of screenwriting and script editing. The next layer will be the provision of longer intensive courses aimed at those people commissioned to write short films or those who wish to develop a feature-film screenplay. It is envisaged that the vast majority of these courses will be provided through existing educational establishments. The next layer will be directly linked to production companies and will involve ongoing training for creative executives (usually the producer in film, the script editor in television), development workshops for commissioned work, and conversion courses for writers transferring from other mediums. This range of support will be financed by the Film Council, film companies, regional production funds, and the new European Union MEDIA program. Inevitably, there will be problems in implementing such a large overall screenwriting and development strategy. However, with the needs clearly identified and a new generation of screenwriters, there is a very real possibility of the U.K.’s developing more than a cottage film industry. We are speaking of a scenario in which the future does look very bright for screenwriters and those committed to improving the standards of support and training for all those involved in developing great films and television.

chapter 6

Through a Mythic Lens r a n dy r e d roa d - s na p p

I’m an American Indian on my mom’s side and a cowboy on my father’s. Consider the psychology of that for a moment, and you’ll have a new understanding of the phrase “at war with oneself.” I’ve written three featurelength scripts, only one of which made it kicking and screaming to the screen. I’m thirty-four, never went to film school (although I’ve ridden my bike past some of the better ones), and until two weeks ago had never read a film book. The usual talk of mentors and influences is not forthcoming, and my sense of my own process is as murky as pond water. It’s indicative of the relatively small number of American Indians working as screenwriters that such a nascent figure would be asked to comment on Native American screenwriting in a collection of essays that features established professionals. But the cold mathematics of genocide has left a void that must be filled by something, so, let’s get personal. First, there is no such thing as a Native American screenplay. Just as there is no such thing as a Jewish screenplay. Screenplays are not possessed of ethnicity or race (although they may be possessed by the devil). I make this point because the tendency is to keep Indians in the bow-and-arrow ghetto, on a museum shelf, or, worst of all, in a category by ourselves. This is not to say that there is no such thing as an American Indian film113

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maker. German filmmakers exist because Germans exist. French filmmakers exist because the French exist, Japanese cinema because the Japanese exist. And American Indian cinema exists because Indians exist. Pure and simple. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the sole requirement. We are permanent members of the country club called humanity. All attempts to terminate our membership have failed. Indians have a certain way of looking at the world and living in it. Indians carry government-issued I.D. cards that tell how much native blood we have in our bodies (these come in handy when we get stopped by the Identity Police). For those of us who do not own one of these cards, we are in danger of being defined out of existence. Indians get haircuts when someone dies. We have a distinct sense of humor and a way with animals. For example, when we kick a dog, the dog forgives us faster. Indians have a unique talent for storytelling, and our mythmaking resume is thousands of years long. And, most impressive of all, according to American history, Indians have the ability to vanish. Nobody else can do that.

THE DRAMA KING AND DRAMAMINE MY FAMILY AS FILM SCHOOL

I’m a writer because my father had a way with words. I owe it all to him, or at least the part I didn’t get from more distant ancestors. When under the influence of a certain mood-altering beverage, my father became the self-styled “last of the cowboys” and was prone to poetic yet hateful tirades that would’ve been great one-man shows but made for stressful bedtime stories. I trained myself to remember them verbatim so that I could recite them back to him the next day. I thought that by memorizing him, I would ensure that he couldn’t claim to have forgotten and would finally accept responsibility for these venomous word arrows. Of course my father is not really the last of the “cowboys.” If he were, Indians would have the country back. But he is a mythmaker, too. And be-

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cause of this character within a character, I developed a memory like a vise grip. I never forget a word anybody says or the particular way in which they say it. I can’t retain reading for more than five minutes, but I can memorize over 90 percent of all the lines in a movie after one viewing. That’s how I learned to write dialogue. Once my stepmother came out of the kitchen crying tears that could’ve cost Susan Lucci her job. I asked the last of the cowboys what was wrong with her, and he said that he had just told her she didn’t know anything about guns. About guns? I’ll never forget it because I didn’t buy it. Even though I was only ten, I knew she couldn’t possibly be upset about that. Not just that. It had to be something else, something under the skin. And in that moment I realized there was subtext in the world, that every emotion had a basement, an attic, and a safety deposit box. In high school I would daydream of videotaping all the members of my family at our worst moments in hopes that on seeing ourselves in all our neurotic glory we would be collectively embarrassed into a life more ordinary. That’s the first time I imagined myself with a camera and my first notion that there could be something healing about an image. Such are my roots as a screenwriter and a filmmaker, buried in the deep emotional soil of my family, which is the place I learned that people are interesting, complicated, and, despite the flaws, worthwhile and lovable. It is the place where I became excited about human personality, about cowboys and Indians inhabiting the same body, God and the Devil sharing a cab. My family taught me that a character who hits someone over the head with a vase is more interesting than one who just puts flowers in it. And that a funeral can be the perfect place for a joke because people need it most there. And the great thing about being a writer is that sooner or later everyone becomes a character. Life is a passion play. How can we run out of material in a world like this? I could make ten movies and never gaze past my friends and relatives.

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SET YOUR DRAMATIC SOUP ON SIMMER, AND IT WILL EVENTUALLY BOIL

I believe the predominant characteristic of life is the building and releasing of tension. I said this to a friend of mine in a bar in New York City recently, and she informed me that this “was a very Greek concept.” Say what? Were the Greeks the first to perceive this about life, while the rest of us wandered around the cave wondering why we were sometimes stressed out and sometimes not? Or why it felt so good to pee? No. That is a human perception. It has occurred to millions of people the world over, who, like me, never knew or gave two craps about the Greeks. I have an entirely other group of mythmakers on my pedestal. The point is that where there is tension, there is drama. Narrative structure is everywhere if you just look for it. A traffic jam is a great example of the building and releasing of dramatic tension. You get off work with high hopes. It’s Friday night and you got big plans. You get in your sports car and hit the highway just like the commercial showed you. You’re singing along to an old Van Halen song, and Eddie’s guitar solo is giving you an erection. Life is good. But up ahead, ascending into the horizon, is a vehicular blood clot within which you will shortly be packed like the rest of the human cattle for the next hour and a half. Suddenly the song’s not as good, and the commercial lied. Finally, traffic starts moving again but only in intermittent spurts. By now you could kill someone, and it’s a vendetta to get home. They call this “road rage,” and you’re reduced to an urban cliché. The other drivers are the enemy, as is the whole godforsaken city, which you wanted to leave years ago, but you’re stuck in a dead-end job and can’t afford to. It occurs to you that this traffic jam is a metaphor for your whole damn life, and you just realized your gas tank is two letters below “E.” Finally, you reach your exit and coast on fumes to the Chevron station. You’re relieved until you see the price of gas per gallon and remember who’s president. A brand new batch of tensions begins.

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Sex has a similar structure, although for most of us a superior resolution. Musical phrases resolve. A drug binge resolves, although it isn’t pretty when it does. Even sleep must resolve if a person is to remain healthy (it’s common knowledge that if a person doesn’t dream for a long period of time, that person becomes a nightmare). We all know people who can’t relax. What are they lacking? Exercise? No, resolution. Sometimes movies resolve like music and sometimes like a drug binge. How and if they resolve is up to the filmmakers, depending on how much of the tension you want the audience to take home with them.

INDIAN STYLE: IMPOSING A MYTHIC NARRATIVE

In life there are coincidences and accidents. On film there are metaphors and destinies. In life there are mistakes and regrets. On film there are tragedies anddreamsdeferred.Inlifethereareapologiesandforgiveness.Onfilmthere is redemption. In life there are old flames, and on film there are lost loves. When I was ten, I shot a doe deer while my father napped at the base of a tree beside me. Although I was proud to have gotten a deer on my first-ever hunt,Ifeltbadthatitwasfemale,andIwastraumatizedbythefeelingofhaving killed something bigger than I was. To make it even worse, the doe’s almond-shaped brown eyes looked like my mother’s and like the eyes of all the Indian girls I knew. I had a “Buck Only” hunting license hanging around my neck, and earlier that morning my father had shot a six pointer. I had wanted to be like him, even to outdo him by killing a bigger buck. But most of all I wantedtopleasehim.OnthewayhomeweranintooneofDad’sfriends,and I saw a hint of embarrassment in my father’s eyes that I never forgot. Had I actually managed to kill in a wimpy way? I didn’t think that possible. I was struck with the sense that the story had ended badly, that I was now walking around without my antlers, unable to look an Indian girl in the eye. As I got older I began to think of that original hunt as an emasculating event in my life. I attached to it a mythic significance that would blow each detail so far out of proportion it would only fit on the big screen. It became

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the moment through which I would attempt to resolve many of the emotional musical phrases of my youth and reintroduce myself to a long-lost cowboy. And so the story begins: Nobody cares how much blood runs through a deer. But everyone wants to know how much blood runs through an Indian. It’s kind of hard to tell unless you cut one of us open. And watch all the stories pour out. There was a boy who followed in a deer’s footsteps instead of his father’s. . . . My father was in the audience at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of my film, The Doe Boy. Afterward, he quoted some of my lines to me.

THE AMBIGUOUS ENDING

I’m often asked if I plan to continue to write and direct films about American Indians, as if I am painting myself into a red-skinned corner and turning my back on the balance of the human roster. This is funny to me. I write about people that interest me, who have crossed my path or my gaze in a meaningful way. They could be Amish schizophrenics for all I care. Still, most of the world has not been introduced to the modern versions of Indians, on-screen or otherwise. We’ve been galloping around the romantic subconscious of America for so long people didn’t know we drive cars until Smoke Signals came out. So, because of an error of omission on a colonial scale, we are what’s new under the sun, which makes us, for the long moment, just like everyone else only more interesting. To quote Andrew Horton from the one film book I’ve read, Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay: “man is a storytelling animal.” I would add that some women are animals too, especially after three margaritas. And writers are Peeping Toms, voyeurs, stalkers, and secret agents that came to the dance alone and are going home with everyone.

chapter 7

Screenwriting (and Filmmaking) in the Balkans s l o b o da n s i ja n

In a poll conducted in Sarajevo in 2000 by the independent magazine Slobodna Bosna film critics and filmmakers from all of the republics of former Yugoslavia were invited to select the best Yugoslav film made before disintegration, and they voted for Who’s Singing Over There (1980), my directorial debut. After all the years of terrible war and atrocities, I was deeply touched by this honor, which came from the city devastated by my compatriots. It helped me feel a little better about the fact that I am probably the only major director in Serbia who did not make a single film during more than a decade of Milosevic’s rule. To get a project financed in Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, you had to stay within the parameters of what was considered acceptable by his cronies. And they had terrible taste. Or you were expected to publicly state your support for his “patriotic” politics, and then they would give you money and more “freedom,” let you do “whatever you want,” be a little bit nasty with your film, attack “communists” or “Titoists,” as long as you refrained from any public criticism of his party. Milosevic created an illusion of freedom of political expression in which people could publicly express their views, without going to jail (sure punishment during Tito), but the conse119

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quences were that now it was quite clear where you stand, and if you were not a supporter, you would be cut off from any financial support controlled by the state. And most of the finances were tightly controlled by him and his wife or their party’s officials. So if you analyze the behavior of most of the filmmakers from Yugoslavia who did make films during Milosevic’s rule, but appeared to voice their discontent with his authoritarian regime, you will notice that most of them became increasingly critical of him only if, and after, they had fallen from grace. To make a film, you needed financial aid from the Ministry of Culture, state TV, and a loan from the bank, and then a production company would come up with a little of its own cash. Sometimes a powerful sponsor such as a big industrial complex would step in with hundreds of thousands, even millions, of German marks to finance a certain film project. But all of these sources of money were tightly controlled, and if you were not their man, or at least someone that they believed was not against them, one of these sources of financing would be denied to you, usually just one, so that nobody could say that the Ministry of Culture or state TV did not support you. It always looked as if you were not capable enough to put the whole thing together. The changing political landscape had another consequence: people that were friends during Tito’s dictatorship, and were united in a quiet denial of his regime, found themselves suddenly in the open, where the range of political differences was much wider. When I returned from the United States in 1989, I found some of my closest friends on totally different ends of this spectrum. Some of them were so far to the right or to the left, or had become such ultranationalists or antinationalists, that I could not even invite them to the same dinner party because it could lead to a physical conflict. This introduced a new dilemma into our profession: can you work with someone who has a totally different set of political beliefs? Before, especially during the period of a weakened central government, between Tito’s death and Milosevic’s rise to power, even if someone was a member of the Communist Party, and that was often the case, it was possible to work with

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him or her unless he or she was a hard-liner. But now everyone was pretty much heated up about newly discovered political beliefs, so it became increasingly hard to keep politics out of screenwriting and filmmaking. Another crucial element in getting the film made was, of course, what the film was really about. For some reason Milosevic’s cultural establishment favored antiwar movies. This paradox, that a regime responsible for the worst bloodshed in the Balkans in decades supported antiwar films, was really appalling to me. I was struggling to avoid falling into such a trap. Of course, I was against the war, but making an antiwar film just to make Milosevic’s regime appear peace-loving was not something I really wanted to do. Also, I considered myself a comedy director, and there was not much to laugh about in a dirty war. For a while I even seriously considered abandoning comedy making. Finally, I stopped trying to get financing for my projects in Yugoslavia until after the war ended in Bosnia. One of the most unusual problems that screenwriters and filmmakers in Yugoslavia faced during this traumatic period was the speed and frequency of changes. Certainly, the intensity of events and their tragic nature provided us with incredible stories, but it became almost impossible to follow up the speed at which our lives and our values were changing. It really was a daunting task to frame this avalanche of events into a single story or to put things in a perspective that could give deeper meaning to the madness surrounding us, when even the perspective itself was changing daily and sometimes even hourly. The nature of the medium requires a certain amount of time for any film to get made—let’s say (optimistically) that the process usually takes from one to two years. But in Yugoslavia it became almost impossible to write anything that would not be outdated by the time you finished a first draft. Actually, it was almost impossible to reach the final-draft stage, unless you accepted the fact that your script was already a relic. To illustrate what I am trying to explain, allow me to start by analyzing my own experience. I actually remember when it all started. I became aware of these phenomena—the speed of changes and the unpredictable nature of events— sometime in 1989. I was working with an old friend, a writer who had al-

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ready cowritten one film with me. I had just come back from the United States, where I had tried to help with postproduction on an Englishlanguage romantic comedy set in Yugoslavia that I directed for Hemdale, Inc., called Secret Ingredient. That film ended up in a gridlock of legal battles between the coproducers. Fed up with all of this, I started working on a new screenplay based on an old idea that we had, which had been too provocative at the time. It seemed as if we might be able to do something with it now. We were excited at the opportunity to challenge one of the last taboos that remained from Tito’s Yugoslavia—the Yugoslav People’s Army. Trying to tackle that, in the past decades, would almost certainly put you in jail. Actually, one of my colleagues from the film school, Lazar Stojanovic, served three years in prison for his student thesis project, a feature film titled Plastic Jesus (1971, released in 1990), in which he challenged the taboos of Josip Broz Tito and his army. While we were working on a screenplay, I discovered that my writer and I did not share the same political views any more, and he was constantly trying to introduce ideas and scenes that were foreign to me. He seemed to be too far to the right of the center, where I believed I was. Another surprising thing was that while we were playing with this army taboo, it became common knowledge that the army itself was not as unified and strong as it used to be. Some secretly filmed footage was released by the army itself, about conspiracy in its own ranks. Even the newspapers started to poke fun at the army, which was unimaginable before. So our script became immediately dated. And we were just finishing the first act! Finally, we abandoned the project. During the same period, Filip David, an old friend of mine and an excellent writer, published a book of short stories titled Prince of Fire, which dealt with the heritage of Hassidic legends in the Balkans. I talked him into writing an interesting screenplay out of it for me, something that I hoped to shoot in the style of Chagall’s paintings, with the help of Serbian TV, where David worked as one of the editors/producers. In the meantime, however, political confrontation in Serbian TV was gaining momentum because pro-Milosevic cronies were trying to take complete control of

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that organization (1989). Filip David became one of the organizers of the Independent Syndicate of TV employees, which tried to stop this escalation of totalitarian control. Of course, he and many others were fired. His script was rejected by TV, because although the subject matter had nothing to do with politics, the writer did. In this case that was what mattered. The next project came to me in the form of a story idea, sent by a Bosnian actress who lived in Zagreb, Croatia. It was a black comedy about a woman trying to transport by train, from Slovenia to Bosnia, the dead body of her husband, disguised as a passenger, because it was cheaper that way. I tried to get Bosnian writer Abdulah Sidran (When Father Was Away on Business) to work on it. Sidran was interested at first, but later, having some offers from abroad, he recommended his good friend from Sarajevo, Serbian writer Todor Dutina. I met with Dutina in Belgrade, and we tried to work out something, but he was too busy at the time. In the next two years the political situation in Bosnia deteriorated so badly that we could not even communicate anymore. Dutina found himself on the opposite side of the front line from Sidran in the war in Bosnia. And, anyway, the country was obviously falling apart, forming different state entities, and our story was dealing with a journey through Yugoslavia, which did not exist anymore. Next I worked with another writer, Stevan Koprivica, from Montenegro, who was based in Belgrade, trying to develop a script from his play Farewell to Arms. The play dealt with a bunch of retired Yugoslav People’s Army generals, somewhere in a spa, at the Montenegrin coast, plotting how to come back to power and bring back Tito’s regime. It was a sharp satire that, on another level, dealt with the subject that still interested me— the Yugoslav People’s Army. The play was successful, and the taboo was weakened, but still the story irritated many hard-liners, so I thought, here’s a chance to play with that subject again. But we needed financing from Montenegro, the other republic of rump Yugoslavia, and at that time Montenegro was even more conservative than Serbia. So we got an answer like this: Stevan made it too tough on the army. In Serbia things were becoming unbearable. Milosevic’s power became

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overwhelming. I decided to resign from the post of director of the Yugoslav Cinematheque and was considering what to do next when I got an offer from a friend in Los Angeles to come and work for his production company and try to develop some independent projects there. War was coming closer, and the time for comedy was over, so I decided to take my family away for a while, until things settled down. But things were just starting to happen, as we would unfortunately find out. My English-language film, the romantic comedy Secret Ingredient, finally made it out of the legal gridlock between the coproducers, but the outbreak of war in Yugoslavia made it completely outdated. People were fed a regular diet of horror stories from the Balkan battleground by TV news, and romantic comedies about Yugoslavia were just not what they expected from us. The film was finally released in the United States on video. After the Dayton Agreement was signed, I returned to what was left of Yugoslavia and tried to direct a satire about our government. Poor Little Hamsters was a kind of Serbian Duck Soup, written by our only professional screenwriter (meaning: the only one who makes a living exclusively by writing screenplays), Gordan Mihic. Poor Little Hamsters became one of his scripts that was never produced because Milosevic and his wife, invigorated and considered by the West at the time to be a “stabilizing factor” in the Balkans, hated comedy; or, more probably, they were afraid of it. Humor was a dangerous thing in their view, since one of its basic mechanisms was attacking authority. They supported “serious” films, films that explored the tragedy of war, or criminalization of our society, as if they themselves were its victims and not its perpetrators. I spent several years trying to put this film together. I was four times in preproduction! But each time something happened with the financing, just before the shoot started. A bank loan was denied after it had already been approved. The state TV pulled out of the project at the last minute. The Ministry of Culture withdrew its support. The truth was that we had the president as the main character in the film. We had no chance! But the interesting thing was that officials from Serbian TV went to great pains to hide their resentment of the project. They really wanted to present themselves as free-

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minded individuals who are far removed from any idea of censorship. Actually, the main editor/producer of the program was a well-established writer of satires during Tito’s era—Milovan Vitezovic. But now he was the main censor. His partner, probably the worst producer ever to work in such an important position, Aleksandar Avramovic, was an actual official of Milosevic’s Socialist Party and even participated in some of the military operations during the war. I saw this denial of production and this censorship as a travesty. Instead of saying “We don’t want to make this film because it is about the president” or “We just can’t produce this because it shows street demonstrations against the government,” they would phone other financiers secretly and make them pull out of the project and at the same time say to us that they wanted to do it. Sick of this hide-and-seek, I became determined to make them officially refuse to produce the film. After I had tried unsuccessfully for three years to get this film off the ground, director of Serbian TV Jovan Ristic refused to sign a contract to produce the film—and that was the end of it. And then, finally, I found an antiwar script that I liked. The war was over (at least for now; Kosovo was still far ahead), but for this film I did not want to raise financing at home, and I had a chance to make it with foreign money. Several foreign producers were interested, but we had to get some funding from the European institutions. But there the obstacle was that we were Serbs! It did not matter if we were “good” or “bad” Serbs; we found ourselves struggling to overcome the wall of prejudice surrounding everyone and everything coming from our country. Finally, after several years, it seemed as if this film was going to happen. British Screen was interested, and we had a producer from France. We were aiming to shoot in May of 1999. And then, just as I was getting ready to scout some locations, in March of 1999, the war in Kosovo erupted. Instead of shooting a film, I found myself hiding in a cellar, with my wife and our eleven-year-old daughter, hoping to survive the NATO bombs. At the end of April I left for Paris, trying to relocate the shoot in Bulgaria. Now it was going to be a British/French/Belgian/Bulgarian coproduction. I even scouted locations in Bulgaria, looking for sites that resemble Yugoslavia. But the deal with

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the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture fell apart. After all, it was a film about Yugoslavia, in the Serbian language. The project was doomed. The bombings were over, but economic sanctions were on, and no foreign producer could finance shooting in Yugoslavia. And the last try was a crazy, zany comedy, Stuffed Zucchini, that I cowrote with Sanja Domazet, a young playwright from Belgrade. After the fiasco with Poor Little Hamsters I realized that I was beating my head against the wall trying to make a comedy about our president, so I thought, this script was a comedy entirely set in modern Russia—in Moscow. But again, it had characters like the president of new Russia or the first Sovietera president, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, as a vampire, etc. It was a macabre post–cold war comedy about the secret service war for Lenin’s preserved brain. It could be shot in any language and anywhere. It had a universal flavor. But when I offered this script to an actress who could play one of the leading roles, she became very agitated: “You cannot make fun of the Russians!” she exclaimed. “They are our only friends! Make fun of us, but not of the Russians!” “But,” I said wearily, realizing that I had just hit another wall, “I tried that with Poor Little Hamsters.” She was married to one of the new “businessmen,” people close to Milosevic, and I knew that she knew what she was talking about. Actually, she approached me, asking if I had a script for her. The regime was trying to lure me over to its side somehow, sending signals that all I needed to do was to bring another script, a script that was less troublesome. But obviously our minds were working in very different ways. I simply could not provide the script that I liked in a way that would be acceptable to them, even if I tried. When two opposing principles collide, there is no solution. In the meantime many films are being made in Serbia. Young filmmakers try to do the best with what they have and what they can get. Many of these projects go straight to DVD or video, with a possible transfer to film. And that seems to be the future. In Balkan countries traditional cinema is running out of sync with the times. With its expensive price tag that requires a paid film crew and a professional union shoot, its days may be numbered. There is no more big Yugoslavian market. Now it’s only Bel-

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grade and a couple of smaller cities. Producible scripts are for films you can conceive, write, shoot, and produce in six months. For now (i.e., November 2000) NATO bombing prevails as a subject. There is still a lot of selfpity in Serbia. And the Serbian October Revolution made that self-pity dated, already. There is new hope but very little money. Films may be the last thing on the agenda of the new government. I may be wrong, however, because I strongly believe that Serbian cinema was, for a while, the strongest segment of our culture. So it may become that again. But it will be hard to deal with questions of guilt and responsibility for what happened. Any objective criticism may require another generation. And, most of all, it will require a less tumultuous time. And our new leaders will have to learn to like comedy. A new law should be created by Parliament that requires a weekly comedy show on state TV, somewhat similar to Saturday Night Live or The Spitting Image, that mocks all the members of the elected government. Maybe that will change something in the Balkans.

chapter 8

American TV Writing Musings of a Global Storyteller karen hall

I am a television writer. I’ve been one for a long time, which means I’ve been announcing that fact at cocktail parties, when asked what I do for a living, for a long time. By now I’m very used to the reaction I get, which is somewhere between “We don’t even own a television” (read: “We don’t have head lice”) and “We only watch the Learning Channel.” Sometimes I just get a surprised look and an “Oh, really?”—which is meant to be noncommittal but is generally delivered with an inflection as if I’d just revealed myself as Tim McVeigh’s favorite aunt. Now, I’ve seen a lot of movies and listened to a lot of music and read a lot of contemporary fiction in the last few years, and I’m not really sure what those other media have to be conceited about. But I’m not here to defend television—as much as I’d like to—I’m here to examine my life as a global storyteller because, all subjective judgments aside, that is indeed what I have become. (Maybe I’ll try that at my next cocktail party. It certainly sounds a lot loftier than “TV writer”!) As I write this, I am about to enter my twenty-third year as a television writer, and sometimes I hear voices in the back of my head saying things like, “Isn’t it about time for you to get a real job?” I mean, I have spent the 128

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greater part of my adulthood inventing the exploits of fictitious characters. Is that enough to do with a life? And now into this existential quagmire comes the question of global screenwriting. Thanks to modern technology, I can’t deny the fact that I am no longer engaged in storytelling on a national level (which was already an overwhelming thought), but I am now telling stories to the world. Does this mean that storytelling is a more important way to spend one’s life than ever or that I’m wasting people’s time (and my own) on a much larger scale? The twenty-year mark is a good time to reflect on such things, I suppose. To me, the big questions right now are these: what stories have I told in the course of my career? Were those stories worth telling? What is the value of any story? And what will a new ability—storytelling on a worldwide scale—mean for my future goals and the future goals of all storytellers? I began my career as a global storyteller early, long before there was a name for such a thing. My first job in television was as a writer for M*A*S*H—a show about a war that took place before I was born, in a country about which I knew very little. I remember thinking that the “write what you know” mantra was not going to do me any good. Looking back on it now, though, I realize that I did write what I knew, regardless of the foreign setting and circumstances. My first episode, entitled “Father’s Day,” was about Margaret Houlihan’s attempts to gain the approval of her rigid and judgmental father. Another of my episodes, “Hey, Look Me Over,” was about Nurse Kellye’s frustration at being ignored by Hawkeye because she wasn’t as gorgeous as the other nurses. (Trust me, I was fresh out of college, and that story idea came from experience.) One of my favorite story lines was a subplot about the other characters’ attempts to deal with Charles Emerson Winchester’s chronic snoring. A universal theme if ever there was one. When I look at the stories I’ve told on other shows (Hill Street Blues, I’ll Fly Away, Northern Exposure, Moonlighting, Judging Amy), I see a long list of universal topics. To me, that justifies the value and stresses the importance of global screenwriting. Countries and regions might be very different in lan-

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guage, dress, custom, tradition, social behavior, and many other categories, but beneath all of that, the stories we tell are almost always based on universal themes. We share the same joys and heartaches and goals and frustrations, and we tell stories for the same reason, whatever that reason is. Since I’m a television writer and since television is a business obsessed with ratings and demographics, I am always aware of the audience and always trying to anticipate its reactions. In fact, my entire job revolves around manipulating the audience. As cold as that sounds, it is, in fact, what I do. Once I have decided on a story to tell, I then get out the entire bag of writers’ tricks in order to make the audience feel what I need it to feel—otherwise, I won’t hold its interest, and it won’t hear anything I have to say. Since these are the basic mechanics of what I do, I always write with the audience in mind. And in the last five years I’ve become aware of the fact that the audience is not what it used to be. I took a break from television for a few years and wrote a novel. The book, Dark Debts, was published by Random House in 1996. Random House sold the foreign rights to several other publishers, so about a year later the book was published in the U.K., in Germany, in Japan, and in France. I began to receive fan mail from all over the world. The book deals with the very universal theme of Good and Evil, and it was fascinating to hear feedback from many different cultures and countries and to realize how much we all have in common, especially when confronted with subject matter that has never been solved on any continent. For the past two years I have been working on the primetime network series Judging Amy. This has been a very vivid experience in writing for a global market because the series airs in Australia and France about one year behind the schedule in the United States. Thanks to the Internet I can get regular and detailed feedback from viewers in other countries, and again I am amazed at how well the show translates. The constant and pervasive message is that the things we endure are universal, and the stories we tell have no boundaries outside of the mechanics of things like language and technology. Recently I wrote a screenplay with a fellow novelist, Mary Doria Rus-

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sell. Mary lives in Cleveland, I live in Los Angeles, and we did most of our work together over the Internet. The screenplay was based on her Random House novel The Sparrow, whose protagonist is a Spanish Jesuit. The director with whom we’ve been working is Australian. The producer is an American who thinks the movie would be best served by a non-American production company, since some of the themes are things that our young and still relatively puritanical culture finds taboo. The story itself is set mostly in Rome, and Mary and I have both spent a lot of research time there. The other part of the story is set on another planet. (Which gives rise to further reflection: is there something even larger than global screenwriting?) With this endeavor we are very aware that our potential audience is global. Interestingly, though, there is no real need to tell the story any differently than we would if the audience were going to be strictly American. This is true for any storyteller. The setting of the story is just that—the setting of the story. The details need to be accurate and realistic, whether the story is set in Iowa or China. The setting provides texture and a sense of the authority and trustworthiness of the storyteller, but the story itself will always reach far beyond the setting. How has storytelling around the world affected the storyteller? I can only talk about how it has affected me and assume my experience will resonate with others. With that disclaimer, here is what I have noticed: I have become much more open-minded about which books I will read and which movies I will go to see. I used to be reluctant to read books or go to see movies that were set in other countries, figuring I wouldn’t be able to relate to them. Receiving email from fans in other countries has taught me that whether or not I can relate to a story has little to do with where it is set. The recent success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon tells me that a lot of other people have figured out the same thing. I have friends in other countries, and that has also changed my perspective. Well duh, I know. But I grew up in a town of twelve hundred people, and I was in college before it wasn’t strange to me to have friends from other states. Growing up in rural Virginia, I had pen pals in exotic places like Miami and Los Angeles, and I couldn’t wait to get their letters and to

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hear about the things that were happening in their lives. Even back then (a zillion years ago) I was amazed to discover that we shared the same obsessions (boys, music, clothes, hair) in spite of the fact that we lived such different lives in such different places. (That may have been my first venture into global storytelling!) These days, the miracle of email teaches me the same lessons, and it is an invaluable source of help to me as a writer. I can email friends in other countries when I need help with research or when I need insight into things like cultural differences and behaviors. I’m optimistic about any writing endeavor. One of the reasons I wanted to write a novel was that the storytelling potential seemed so endless. I had in my possession obscure books owned by my parents—books long out of print and not well known at the time of their publication—and it seemed to me miraculous that anyone might pick up one of those books at any time, read it, and be changed by it many years after it was considered to be in any way important. Television, by comparison, seemed much more ephemeral. True, any episode I wrote was likely to have an audience in the millions. But it was also going to evaporate into thin air after one primetime rerun, and it certainly wasn’t going to be sitting on anyone’s shelf twenty years after the fact. Thanks to modern technology, that’s no longer true. And thanks to the global market, the same who-knows-who-mightbe-touched-by-this feeling of wonder exists about every episode I write. This, to me, makes the entire writing experience infinitely more rewarding. I’m more optimistic in general. Making friends (and meeting fellow storytellers) in other countries has made the entire world seem smaller and kinder. Foreigners are no longer homogenous blobs of people who might drop bombs on us someday. The world is a larger pool of potential friends, potential storytellers, potential inventors, potential curers of cancer . . . The question “Which story can I tell?” seems much less restrictive. I no longer have to tell a “blockbuster” story in order to tell any story at all. If my story is rejected by a handful of studios in the United States, there are many other places to take it. I no longer have to tell stories for the lowest common

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denominator. I can tell the stories I want to tell and then explore the world in search of an audience. And these days, I’m very likely to find one. In her wonderful book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art Madeleine L’Engle quotes fellow writer Jean Rhys from an interview in the Paris Review: “All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake” (25). Madeleine L’Engle returns to that powerful image throughout the book and talks about the writer’s role as a “servant” to the river. This image kept returning to my mind while I was working on this article and thinking about the idea of global screenwriting, and it strikes me that the “huge lake” is turning into an ocean, which makes the rivers and tributaries more abundant and more accessible. And the global job of feeding the ocean becomes more rewarding with every new trickle. If stories are worth telling at all, they are worth telling to as wide an audience as possible. Which makes this, for my money, a very exciting time to be a storyteller. Or even a television writer.

chapter 9

Lew Hunter’s Worldwide Screenwriting 434 lew hunter

“What right does a donkey ex-farm boy from Guide Rock, Nebraska, have teaching screenwriting in Israel,” says moi to myself in 1983. My more assured voice replies, “Well, he has master’s degrees from Northwestern and UCLA and will be granted a doctor of letters. He has seventeen aggregate years as a creative executive at CBS, NBC, ABC, Disney, and Hanna-Barbera. He has been a card-carrying Writers Guild of America professional screenwriter for fourteen years, and, oh yes, during those years he had a heavy and/or light hand in developing over five thousand hours of television episodes, miniseries, and movies.” “Well, we’ll see,” says I. And thus the most exciting academic adventure in my life began— teaching screenwriting around the world. During this experience I immediately and emphatically learned that screenwriting is performance drama/comedy most closely aligned to the oral, around-the-campfire, Neanderthal-era kind of storytelling humans have engaged in for eons. Movies allow you to interact with heroes, villains, and those in between with the simultaneous literalness of the stage and the imagination stimuli of radio, the medium the legendary Norman Corwin claimed was the “theater of the mind.” 134

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What does your imagination say when the child killer in M takes a little balloon-holding girl behind a large bush? The shot stays and stays until the balloon lifts above the bush to ascend toward the clouds. How will your mind amplify the information when an assistant warden, checking prisoners into Alcatraz, squints from his table up at Clint Eastwood’s character to inquire, “How was your childhood?” Eastwood’s Escape from Alcatraz reply: “Short.” It’s beyond the obvious to say these visual and verbal examples would play “around the world.” But I must admit and confess a late realization that world cinema was my, and sad to say not today’s, training. My early 1960s UCLA classmates, including a skinny Italian kid named Coppola, used to excitedly rush each week to the Laemmle Theater on Hillhurst in L.A. to see what Antonioni, Bergman, Fellini, Truffaut, Ray, Kurosawa, and others were doing. And we were constantly filled with wonder, stimulation, and conviction that film is art. In a Copenhagen workshop created by Moens Rukoff, of the Danish Film Academy, I was asked why I most used foreign films for my pedagogical references. My reply in 1995 and now still is, “I resist the word foreign as that often has a pejorative taint to many. I embrace the word international, and international movies were the centerpiece of my film foundation.” Night Mail, Song of Ceylon, Nanook of the North, Listen to Britain, The Bicycle Thief, The Four Hundred Blows, Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the Pather Panchali trilogy, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, That Sporting Life, Oh Dreamland, Z, Room at the Top, A Clockwork Orange, if, He Who Must Die, Never on Sunday, La Dolce Vita, Yojimbo. Surely if you have seen these films, the hair on the backs of your arms must stand; perhaps moisture gathers in your tear ducts, or chills move up and down your vertebrae. Seeing these films was, for me, like gloriously losing my virginity multiple times. In 1983 my Israeli/American guide and now adopted brother, John Bernstein, brought me most into focus. “In Israel, we do not need stories; we need to get rid of stories.” So it is the world around. Now and forever. It is my opportunity to help people “get rid of stories.” Now and forever.

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“They tell me you don’t think screenwriting can be taught.” This comment began the highest watermark of my screenwriting education career in the Richelieu Lecture Hall of the Sorbonne in Paris. You see, by 1995 I had the worldwide experience and confidence to, hopefully, intelligently respond to my own declaration. “Bullshit. To say screenwriting cannot be taught is to say Aristotle did not need Plato. That Monet did not need Manet, Nureyev did not need . . . ” Then I vigorously gestured to the triple-life-sized portraits of Racine, Molière, and Maupassant while naming their mentors, ending with Maria Callas’s vocal coach, whom she continued to utilize throughout her storied career. “Why is it screenwriting is the only form of creative expression ‘divined’ by the individual artist?” I went on, “They also tell me you do not want to be Americanized.” I leaned forward, hand to chest, conspiratorially, “Well, neither do I. I think McDonald’s is a culinary and dietary abomination. And, though Walt was one of my hallowed mentors, Disney Paris is a cultural Chernobyl. The Disneyfication of our planet is beyond the words abomination and disaster. But, I do not want to be Francophiled even though my heritage is Scot via Normandy. And, neither should you. We should all be citizens of the world. And with that mind-set, use the storytelling of the screen to change some small part of this shrinking world we want to touch.” Aristotle said that superior drama/comedy is drama/comedy that allows us to discover ourselves. That teacher of teachers was not talking about Greeks discovering themselves but about humans the world over behaving and misbehaving, looking into mirrors darkly and lightly. In that aforementioned Copenhagen workshop I was, I confess, telling a (hopefully rare) “war story” to weakly tie into a screenwriting point. My beloved wife, Pamela, sensed a malaise in the fifteen participants slumped around the table. “How would you like to have Lew teach now?” says Pamela. Fifteen bodies energized and in unison shouted, “Teach.” Lesson learned. I taught. And in Paris I started teaching my “screenwriting can be taught” dictum and urging them to be “citizens of the world” and did they get it. I received the longest standing applause (five minutes) in my

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donkey ex–farm boy career. The words empowered and validated—Southern California appropriate words, by the by—are trivial compared to my exhilaration. People around the world want to tell stories and tell them well. And the ultimate platform is screen, Internet, television, theater, and miracles yet to be invented. From the beginning of human experience, when people were sitting around fires and eating roasted pterodactyl wings, someone said, “Manny, tell us a story.” Manny was chosen because he had the best sense of beginning, middle, and end—a paradigm first put on papyrus by Aristotle as it relates to performance drama/comedy. All novelists I know believe screenwriting is the hardest writing. “There is so much craft in the form.” T. K. Kalem, a past Time Magazine critic, said, “In theater, the drama is thrust at the audience. In movies, the audience is thrust at the drama.” That definition certainly delineates the special effects and “body count” movies, but it equally suggests, by close-ups, the capability, through the eyes of the actors, to illuminate the human soul in a true interactive experience. One of my litanies is that after “less is more,” à la “Short” in Escape from Alcatraz, the best dialogue is “dialogue that illuminates what people are not saying,” à la the spectacular Anthony Hopkins/Emma Thompson characters in Remains of the Day or the brilliance of Harold Pinter’s writing. The world wants to know these tricks of the trade. The world acknowledges, by the audience’s huge international box office presence, the spare, Aristotelian qualities of the American movie storytellers. No, no . . . not Hollywood formulaic writing, but good writing in films that emanate in the contiguous boundaries of that state of mind called Hollywood with names such as Woody Allen, Francis The Conversation Coppola, Eric Forrest Gump Roth, the Coen brothers, Oliver Stone, Alexander Payne, Steven Spielberg, and many other screenwriting artists. In my graduate 434 class at UCLA I asked Billy Wilder if he considered himself a director or a screenwriter. “Oh, my boy, I am a screenwriter. Directing is merely an extension of my screenwriting and the movieola my last rewrite.” All of

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these immediately aforementioned screenwriters well complement and align with contemporary titles like The Full Monty; Shakespeare in Love; Il Postino; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Waking Ned Devine; Billy Elliot; et al. All of these movies have the same mesmerizing components of the best American film stories, such as Saving Private Ryan, Traffic (yes, originally a British documentary series), Erin Brockovich, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, and so many others. William Goldman believes superior screenwriting comprises three elements: “structure, structure, structure.” In a panel discussion I agreed but suggested there may be three equally important elements: “conflict, conflict, conflict.” In the words of my fellow screenwriting chair and brother at UCLA, Richard Walter, “Nobody wants to see a movie about the village of the happy people.” That colloquy would nearly define the American philosophy of screenwriting, a philosophy that brings audiences to theaters to such a degree that the U.S. motion picture revenue is far surpassed by the international box office income. An even more (sadly) dramatic truth, in the international movie theaters that showcase American films, from Britain to Berlin to Bangkok to Buenos Aires, for every ten films exhibited, a mere one originates in the multiplex’s country. Rajko Grlic, a renowned Croatian director/writer, asked me to be the screenwriting professing presence for a to-be-created 1994 Imaginary Academy in Istria, Croatia. In a warm war climate I began a continuing summer workshop, stimulating, bullying, and praising screenwriting warriors in the Balkans. We profess/teach screenwriting the storytelling way. Ben Zulu calls from Zimbabwe and we again teach screenwriting the storytelling way. Alban Sauvenet seeks us out at UCLA to help design the screenwriting conservatory at the Sorbonne. We/they, to this day, teach/profess screenwriting the storytelling way. Alan Denman of the London Screenwriters Workshop called. Penti Halanon in Finland had us over in 2002, and we again taught/professed screenwriting the storytelling way. With, to be sure, respect and love for local traditions and truths and

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idiosyncrasies, which always result as a mere patina over the stories and never obviate the core of the drama/comedy. In 1995 six-foot, twenty-two-year-old Jasmilla told me that “of all the wonderful things you taught in our workshop, the one that was most wonderful was when you said if we were to die after writing this script, we want to write something that would make us happy to have the story be a significant marker of our existence. You know, I should have been dead a hundred times.” I realized. I wept. She wept. We hugged. She had spent the last four years with a submachine gun in her arms, protecting her beloved Sarajevo. Of course, she did a script about the war. And her existence will be well marked by that teaching/professing experience. A movie. A story. In Paris Fabian forgoes the life of a banker for the life of a screenwriter. “I would rather die starving, than live fat.” Writing movies. Telling stories. In Africa Thuka tells a tale about a woman in Harare with multiple husbands to the hoots and howls of her male workshop mates. The story was as wonderful as she is wonderful. Writing movies. Telling stories. Gertrude Stein wrote, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” A wonderful story is a wonderful story is a wonderful story. Jesus illuminated his truths in Hebrew through stories, as did Muhammad and Buddha and every significant spiritual leader in history. Telling stories is primal to us all. Around the globe. If the core of screenwriting is so ancient, “What’s new?” This is a pertinent question that needs an answer. To pay homage to Goldman, I offer three more things: 1. More emphasis on story. 2. More emphasis on story. 3. More emphasis on story. Structure, structure, structure. But if you read or remember your Aristotle’s Poetics, the philosopher emphasizes outlining. The Greeks didn’t make it up as they went along either. Remember Jack Kerouac? A beat-generation writer who made it up as he went along with a roll of butcher paper wheeled into his typewriter? Truman Capote was asked what he thought of Kerouac as a writer. Capote quipped, “Kerouac’s not a writer, he’s a typer.” Don’t be a typer or a word processor or a quill and ink weller. Be a sto-

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ryteller, wherever your geographical presence. Yet there is one caveat, with exceptions of course: write in English. For better or worse English is the international language today and in our lifetimes. My revered friend and icon the Polish director/writer Jerzy Antczak tried to get Chopin made for twenty years. He finally decided to write the script in English. It sold almost immediately on completion and is in postproduction in Warsaw as I write. Chocolat is the most recent successful example of an original screenplay written in a language other than English having found success after being rewritten in English. Yes, we will thankfully always have wonderful subtitled movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Central Station and Il Postino. But you do want to maximize the chances of your movie getting made. None of us write scripts for file cabinets. Write globally. Think American. In structure, in language. Perhaps, in this context, you can be a little pregnant. Finally, in my last words I bow, as I always do, to Austrian-born, Berlintrained Billy Wilder. In my new book, Naked Screenwriting: Twenty Academy Award Winning Screenwriters Bare Their Art, Soul, Craft, and Secrets, Mr. Wilder recalled needing additional filled-out forms at the Mexican border to be admitted into the United States for a career, a life. The border guard emphatically said he simply could not let Wilder into the country unless he had these specific papers. Mr. Wilder pleaded that multiple people had told him that one form was all he needed, saying, “It is so important I be allowed into America. I have a job and a well . . . wonderful opportunity. Please, please reconsider.” The stern guard paused and considered the impassioned immigrant for a seeming eternity, then queried, “What is it you do, Mr. Wilder?” Billy hesitated, then quietly revealed the truth. “I tell stories.” The imposing authority nodded, looked back at the single paper, quickly signed, and shoved the document into Mr. Wilder’s abdomen, and with icon words for the future of movies said, “Mr. Wilder, tell some good ones.” From whatever land you are, whether you’re a tribal authority in Zimbabwe, a nuclear waste employee in Croatia, a banker’s son in Paris, an executive on Fleet Street, a student in Taiwan . . . a donkey farm boy from Nebraska, “Tell some good ones.”

chapter 10

Building a Screenplay A Five-Act Paradigm, or, What Syd Field Didn’t Tell You r ac h i d n o u g m a n ov

As a non-Hollywood writer and director, I ask screenwriters around the world to join me and look at the original three-act paradigm put forward by Syd Field in his book Screenplay (11): beginning Act 1

middle Act 2

x setup (pp. 1–30)

end Act 3 x

confrontation (pp. 30–90)

Plot Point 1 (pp. 25–27)

resolution (pp. 90–120) Plot Point 2 (pp. 85–90)

This paradigm received a lot of praise and became a de facto standard in Hollywood. But it has also faced harsh criticism for its oversimplicity and failure to accommodate the sophisticated demands of modern filmmaking. Indeed, looking at this paradigm as a sort of “painting hanging on the wall” one may ask some tough questions: 141

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We’re already thirty minutes into the film—is it still the beginning, as it was thirty, and twenty-five, and twenty minutes ago? The first plot point happens on page 25—how can it be that we have had no action points until now? Act 2 constitutes 60 pages of confrontation—one obstacle after the other for one hour! Isn’t it boring? The resolution—is it just an “end” lasting thirty minutes? And so on . . . As if responding to such critiques, Syd Field later offered a more detailed structure in the boundaries of the same paradigm (The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver 45): Act 1

Act 2 First Half

Act 3 Second Half

x

x

setup

confrontation

resolution

Plot Point 1 (approx. pp. 20–30)

Midpoint (about p. 60)

Plot Point 2 (approx. pp. 80–90)

Now in this version act 2 is more structured and consists of two parts divided by a midpoint. Although considerably more helpful, this structure still fails to answer many questions. Although the first plot point now may happen earlier (as early as page 20), making the setup more dynamic, we are still not satisfied with the absence of a start point, and we have an overlong beginning. What’s the solution? The paradigm gives no answer. Although act 2 now has two parts, a plot point happens only in its second half. What about the first half? Does the midpoint belong to the first half of act 2 or to the second half? Or does it belong to the entire story, cutting it in two? Resolution—does it happen at the very end of the line, after which the story immediately drops, followed by the final credits? Or is it a thirtyminute gradual process of resolving the story bit by bit? These and other questions cannot keep one entirely happy with the par-

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adigm, which otherwise offers a clear, balanced view of the screenplay. It is like looking at the story from a distance, missing some crucial, vitally important points. You can feel a strong desire to step up and take a closer look at “the painting.” So let’s take this step and look closer at the painting.

THE SETUP: TEN PAGES OR THIRTY?

As we scrutinize act 1, we can immediately distinguish “the most important part of the screenplay”—its first ten pages. It is within the first ten pages of the screenplay (or first ten minutes of the movie) that you can usually determine whether you like it or not. Let’s put it on the painting: Act 1 p. 10 x setup Plot Point 1 (approx. pp. 20–30)

Syd Field points out that within the first ten-page unit of dramatic action you have to show the reader who your main character is, what the dramatic premise of the story (what it’s about) is, and what the dramatic situation (the circumstances surrounding the action) is. Character, premise, situation (we can add “genre” to the list)—to put it all in one word, this is the “setup.” Every plot point is a function of the main character. The start point is no exception—it is an initial event that sets our hero in motion. In the screenplay of Chinatown this moment happens on page 7, when Gittes (Jack Nicholson) accepts the proposal of the phony Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to investigate the case: “Very well. We’ll see what we can do.” Most Hollywood movies have their start points within the first ten minutes:

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10 - min. setup x Start Point

Doesn’t it look suspiciously familiar? Yes, it does. It looks exactly like an act in Syd Field’s paradigm. And in fact it is. As important as it is, you have to consider this unit of dramatic action as a separate act. You have to set up the character, the premise, the situation, and the genre all within this act. You have to set up the entire story in this act, or else the reader will dump your screenplay, and the moviegoer will hate your movie. Write it down and remember: my ten-page setup is act 1. The all-importance of the setup for the entire screenplay deserves a few more words. As a separate act the setup has three distinct parts: opening scene, storylaunching scene, and plot-question scene. In Chinatown the opening scene is a four-page dialogue between Gittes and Curly in Gittes’s office. The story-launching scene takes place in Duffy/Walsh’s office, and it goes from page 5 to the start point on page 7. That leaves the plot-question scene, which is set at the public hearings in the city hall, with the plot question coming from a farmer: “Who’s paying you to do that, Mr. Mulwray? That’s what I want to know.” Note that the opening scene does not necessarily introduce the main character. Its primary goal is to set up the world we are thrown into and establish the genre of the movie we’re watching. In other words, it lays the foundation for the story-launching scene. The latter, in its turn, always deals with the main character (even if your main character is not a human but a subject, such as Woodstock or the Vietnam War). The start point, found in that scene, is the protagonist’s initial action, immediately followed by the plot-question scene. The plot question itself is not always formulated by the protagonist. It may come from a supporting character and sometimes (as in the case of Chinatown) even from an insignificant, seemingly episodic part. Once posed, it closes your setup, and you are ready to plunge into—

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ACT 2: INTRIGUE

Before proceeding to this exciting piece of screenwriting, you may ask yourself, Can the next twenty pages of my screenplay—which is now act 2—still be called “setup”? I guess you already know the answer: No. In contemporary filmmaking you can’t keep your moviegoers satisfied if you keep setting up the story for thirty minutes. You have to do it in ten minutes. So what do we call the next twenty minutes of dramatic action, ending with the famous plot point 1? Simple. We call it: Intrigue. Driven by what will eventually prove to be the central question in the entire story’s plot, we follow our hero into her or his quest. While the plot question is never resolved in this act, a chain of unexpected revelations occurs along the way, leading to plot point 1. The main character suddenly finds herself in the middle of the intrigue. She is part of it! Plot point 1 is a direct result of the start point. Your protagonist is set in motion without really knowing where she/he is going. As a result, she/he becomes involved in some scheme and now faces the point after which there is clearly no return. Plot point 1 is nothing else but your protagonist’s decision to go beyond this point. In Chinatown Gittes discovers that as a result of his initial investigation he has become an actor in someone else’s play, the biggest revelation being the appearance of the real Mrs. Mulwray in his office. Some mistake this event for plot point 1. Remember: plot is a function of the main character. However striking this revelation appears to be, it is not a twist yet. Gittes is not yet moving in any new direction; his decision is simply not there yet. In fact, it is a test. It is Gittes’s commitment to the truth that is being tested. The real twist, the real plot point 1 in Chinatown, happens on page 27, during their second meeting, when Mrs. Mulwray offers to drop the lawsuit. Now there is an alternative. To keep the protagonist proactive, there always must be an alternative at any turning point: go back to normal life or

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step into the new territory, unknown land. Gittes makes his choice: “I don’t want to drop it.” And again, plot point 1 does not lead directly to the next act. Act 2 has yet to be closed, and more often than not it will close with a bang. This bang usually comes as a final revelation of the Intrigue, its strongest one. Burn the bridge before your hero’s eyes. Let us feel that his or her life will never be the same. Kill Mr. Mulwray. BANG! . . . Now that the decision has been made, the point of no return crossed and bridges burned, the protagonist has no other choice but to proceed to—

ACT 3: TERRA INCOGNITA, OR LEARNING EXPERIENCE

This unknown land in the middle of the screenplay might be no less strange to the writer than to the protagonist! Every now and then you can hear from aspiring writers and mature professionals alike that they have great openings and exciting resolutions but are completely lost in this overlong, monstrous sixty-page middle act, where screenplay gurus advise you to simply throw rocks at your protagonist, building obstacle after obstacle after obstacle in what they call “confrontation.” Throwing rocks sounds good, but does such advice help much? Not really. Guess what—there is a simple magic that will make writing the middle part of your screenplay a blissful, joyous, and playful job. The magic is that you don’t have to write sixty pages; there are only thirty pages in act 3. Look again at what Syd Field called “first half ” and “second half ” of act 2: Act 2 First Half

Second Half x Midpoint

Plot Point 2

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What we can see is in fact act 3 and act 4, with their own plot points: Act 3

Act 4 x Midpoint

x Plot Point 2

You may ask skeptically: “Two acts of confrontation instead of one? Isn’t it even worse?” The point is, acts 3 and 4—the middle of your screenplay—are not about confrontation! As longtime moviegoers, since childhood, we have learned that real confrontation comes at the end of a movie. We all know about this “final battle,” where our hero faces the villain in a mortal combat, whoever or whatever the villain and the combat are. So what, then, are those two middle acts about? As I pointed out earlier, act 3 deals with the new, unknown territory that our hero steps into and is therefore bound to explore. It deals with learning. Surely there are obstacles after obstacles after obstacles in this process (remember your college years!). Surely there are some really dangerous hurdles to overcome. Yes, the nemesis may throw some warnings in your hero’s face, usually indirectly (the Smaller Man cuts open Gittes’s nostril), trying to force him or her to change the decision to go into the unknown territory—the nemesis’s territory. And, surely, Kansas is going bye-bye. But all of this is not a face-to-face confrontation with the mastermind yet. This is the important learning experience that our hero has to undergo to be able to successfully confront the evil in the final battle. Despite all the dangers and hurdles of learning, this is mostly an upbeat experience. Our hero seems to progress well, and likes it. (Literally, on page 51, Gittes: “I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it.”) That’s what it is—the midpoint. Very often, the midpoint is not so articulated as plot points 1 and 2. There may be no outstanding dramatic twist. Act 3 may or may not end with a bang. That’s why it’s sometimes difficult for a “script-writing virgin,” overwhelmed by throwing rocks at the protagonist, to locate the midpoint other than by simply splitting the whole script in two—which only adds to the confusion.

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The truth is, your midpoint is not a separator between two acts; it is a plot point like others. As we already know, every act has a plot point before it ends. And as we know, every plot point is a function of the main character. The midpoint belongs to act 3. It also belongs to your hero’s learning experience. And it is a high point at that. So look for it where your hero likes the experience or learns some important lesson that will eventually lead him or her to victory. How does act 3 close? It’s up to you. You may go for a “bang” scene without necessarily any huge revelation, just offering another successfully passed hurdle. You may even give it a foretaste of the forthcoming battle. Or you may go for a subtler psychological scene. Just know that it ends your protagonist’s row of successful learning experiences. And most important, link it to where we came from to this act—plot point 1. In Chinatown act 3 ends with Gittes’s words: “Before this I turned on the faucet, it came out hot and cold, I didn’t think there was a thing to it.” Beautiful. Midpoint. Steady progress. So far so good, tomorrow seems even brighter. We’re definitely going to win. We admire our hero. We rooted for him or her; we put our bets on him or her, and we made a right choice. Not so fast! It’s time to get our hero in some really serious—you’re right—

ACT 4: TROUBLE

OK, thirty more pages of “rocks, hurdles, and obstacles” until you reach the much-desired plot point 2? Easy. Put yourself in the villain’s shoes at this point. Hasn’t the protagonist gone too far? You bet. Isn’t it time to strike back hard? It surely is. Act 4 will usually begin with a scene where the main character meets some different, negative judgment on his or her achievements so far. Act 4 of Chinatown starts on page 58, with Gittes taking a trip to see Noah Cross, who will eventually prove the villain. It is Cross who gives a nega-

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tive judgment to Gittes’s efforts: “You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but believe me, you don’t.” From this point on our hero goes downhill and does it in a progressively faster manner until he or she touches the bottom. It is the lowest point of the entire story, the biggest obstacle so far, which seems insurmountable, or a discouraging discovery showing that he or she has been moving in a wrong direction. Whatever it is, the protagonist will surely experience his or her saddest moments. All the previous efforts may seem vain and useless. Gittes confesses: “I thought I was keeping someone from being hurt and actually I ended up making sure they were hurt.” Again, there will be an alternative: give up or do what you’ve never done before. You know what choice your hero will make. And that choice will be your plot point 2 (well, in our clarified paradigm, this point’s cardinal number is four, but let’s stick to Syd Field’s definition for the time being). Most writers have no problem with defining their plot point 2. It’s where their hero drops any hesitation and goes to face the main problem, the villain, the mastermind, the evil, the nemesis in the final—

ACT 5: CONFRONTATION

Yes, it is the last act of a screenplay that offers the real confrontation. Syd Field calls it “resolution.” But in fact, resolution comes at the very end of the final battle. Otherwise, if we get to know the resolution from its beginning, how can we be taken by the fight? Resolution is a plot point at the end of act 5. It is our hero’s final statement—his or her winning hit, his or her final discovery, his or her ultimate goal. It is the answer to the plot question that first surfaced in the setup. It is the resolution of act 5, and it is the final point of the whole story. There may or may not be a closing scene following the resolution. Your story will suggest the appropriate choice to you. It took one phrase for Robert Towne to close his screenplay: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Many masterpieces, however, have a separate closing scene following

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the resolution. And often we see movies with endings that pave the way for a sequel, offering what seems an opening scene for a new plot. Your story dictates. And sometimes your producer, director, or distributor does. Be that as it may, as soon as act 5—and with it, your story—is resolved, you are free to proudly type the sweetest and most gorgeous words of all: THE END. CONCLUSION: SO, WHAT IS THE PAINTING?

Here you are: Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

x

x

x

x

x

setup Start Point (pp. 5–10)

intrigue Plot Point 1 (pp. 20–30)

learning Midpoint (pp. 50–60)

trouble Plot Point 2 (pp. 80–90)

confrontation Final Point (pp. 115–120)

This is the five-act paradigm. You will immediately recognize that its structure is fully compatible with the three-act paradigm. It is in fact the three-act paradigm seen close-up. Use it. It gives you the instruments that the three-act paradigm simply can’t offer. Analyze it. Here is the breakdown for Chinatown: Act 1 (setup): pp. 1–9 opening—pp. 1–4 Start Point—p. 7 (“We’ll see what we can do.”) plot question—p. 9 (“Who’s paying you to do that, Mr. Mulwray?”) Act 2 (intrigue): pp. 9–31 Plot Point 1—p. 27 (“I don’t want to drop it.”) bang scene—pp. 30–31 (Mulwray is found dead.) Act 3 (learning): pp. 32–57 Midpoint—p. 51 (“I like breathing through it.”) Act 4 (trouble): pp. 58–91 negative judgment—p. 64 (Noah Cross) Plot Point 2—p. 87 (Gittes goes after Mrs. Mulwray.) Act 5 (confrontation): pp. 91–118 Final Point—p. 118 (“He’s responsible for everything!”)

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Here is the breakdown for The Matrix (rent a DVD and play it back, applying the five-act paradigm): Act 1 (setup): mins. 1–11 opening—mins. 1–6 Start Point—min. 9 (“Yeah, sure, I’ll go”—follow the White Rabbit) plot question—min. 11 (“What is the Matrix?”) Act 2 (intrigue): mins. 11–34 Plot Point 1—min. 28 (Neo takes the red pill.) bang scene—mins. 29–34 (unplugging Neo) Act 3 (learning): mins. 34–58 Midpoint—min. 56 (“Where they have failed, you will succeed.”) Act 4 (trouble): mins. 58–93 negative judgment—min. 60 (Cypher) Plot Point 2—min. 91 (“I’m going in after him.”) Act 5 (confrontation): mins. 93–124 Final Point—min. 120 (Neo controls the Matrix.)

Rent a hundred more top DVDs, and find out how every blockbuster follows the five-act paradigm to a T. Doctor your screenplay with it. It will work. Explore the five-act paradigm further. Share your findings with us. And what if you want to make a more personal, art-house or avantgarde film? Still learn the rules—and then break them with knowledge. Good luck!

chapter 11

“I Want Movies to Surprise, Stimulate, and Shock Audiences” An Interview with Terry Gilliam a n d r e w h o rt o n

I mentioned Terry Gilliam in the introduction as a prime example of a worldwide screenwriter and filmmaker. And it is fitting that we return to him as this volume is being finished while his film Jabberwocky is rereleased in the United States. Gilliam sees screenwriting as an activity involving more than writing and, in the worldwide sense, as more than just thinking of a multitude of countries. Even when he was not actually writing scenes and dialogue for the Monty Python films, for instance, he was always influencing the scripts and adding to the films through his directing, his art, animation, ideas, and humor. “It was very good for us to have an American in the group,” comments Michael Palin (Morgan, Monty Python Speaks, 105). The following interview took place on September 26, 2001, two weeks after the terrorist attack on New York and Washington, D.C. It is a triumphant celebration of screenwriting as it mixes with multinational levels of performance, direction, editing, and exhibition. For besides participating in the Python films, Gilliam has become a highly respected director 152

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and thus a part of shaping scripts even in those films for which he took no screenwriting credit: Jabberwocky (1976), Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The Fisher King (1991), Twelve Monkeys (1995), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). ah: Is this current world crisis actually your Brazil with a much darker screenplay? tg: Not really. It’s just that one gets this terrible feeling that certain elements of the world out there want more excitement than is already out there. The world hasn’t changed. But America’s perception of what the world is has perhaps changed. I mean in many ways America has been living in a blinkered state. As we know, the rest of the world has been dealing with similar problems—not at the same scale of course—of what we have just been seeing, but then that’s American in scale, isn’t it? ah: This book is about screenwriting around the world and the need for us all to go beyond our national and even cultural boundaries. Could you say something about what it has been like for you as an American abroad, living and working in Europe? tg: It was actually a choice. You know, being American, you are in this incredibly privileged position as part of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. And one of the reasons I left America was that I really felt its view of the world was so limited, so the only way as an American making movies and trying to say things and at least change people’s view of what the world is to some degree, was for me to live outside of America. I had to be in the real world. That’s one reason I’ve always stayed here in Britain, because I’ve wanted to work as an American with a perspective based outside of America. So I think I’m slightly more aware of what is really going on out there than so many in the States. Particularly working in the movie industry, people tend to have to gravitate to Hollywood, and unfortunately Hollywood is such a tiny, tiny village as far as the number of people actually involved in the business. And the mind-set and view of the world is so limited that it scares the shit out of me, frankly.

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ah: Speaking of Hollywood, the Hollywood screenplay has to a large degree come to be a set of formulas that act like “rules” that one “must” follow if one hopes to succeed in the Biz, such as “three-act structure,” likeable main characters with clearly defined goals, etc. Yet you seem to thrive on breaking the rules, carrying out a spirit of cinematic carnival. Could you say something about what you feel is screenwriting for you? Are there any “rules” for you? tg: No, I don’t think in terms of such rules. I mean obviously you try to get the audience’s attention early on but then the reality is that they have paid their money to come to the film already so you shouldn’t have to be tied down to that either. I start simply with an idea, and I see where it will go. Often I start with a lot of scraps of ideas, from previous attempts, or pieces I’ve never used, and I put them all on the table and see if I can force them into a single story even though none of these ideas relate to each other when I start the process. I mean I just recently saw the popular French film Amélie by JeanPierre Jeunet, who made Delicatessen, and it breaks all the rules and it’s absolutely wonderful! He holds your attention, which is the main thing. You don’t see a three-act structure or anything like a traditional structure. Yes, there is a theme that runs through it, and there is a character who holds it together, but other than that, Jeunet is dancing all over the place, and it is truly wondrous because he’s always engaging my attention and my emotions. And that, it seems to me, is all that one should be doing, not fitting things into these neat patterns that are a typical American thing of trying to explain the world in the most simplistic way. ah: Writing, I feel, involves a certain amount of what I think of as “carnival of the soul”—a sense of freedom, fantasy, and festivity. You have a lot of carnival in your writing, directing, and filmmaking. Where did it all come from and where does it continue to come from for you? tg: I think it was always there, but it was looking for an outlet and finally found it in Python, for they could use what I did. And in fact in doing the animated segments and sequences for Python I was working in a certain

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technique that I wasn’t even planning to work in. And that freed me up in a way that I wouldn’t have been freed up if I worked in a more traditional technique. And so my Python work gave me a sense of confidence that it was OK to do literally what pleased us, what made us laugh. There was no thought beyond us in many senses. The fact that we were successful in pulling it off and found an audience gave us confidence to continue on doing these things that everyone says can’t be done, shouldn’t be done, won’t be done. Strangely, however, as of late I have actually been trying to restrain myself, and break down a film to a more traditional form of storytelling. Of course, I find this a bit frustrating because it’s not what I have been doing, and I find myself wishing I was back where I was fifteen years ago just leaping in all directions. ah: You have always said you don’t want people to feel “so-so” about your films. Rather, you prefer them to love them or hate them. Is this still true? tg: Yes! Of course it’s partly my perversity of wanting to go against the flow of whatever is the common flow at the moment. And that’s because most movies are lulling people into a false sense of security or giving them juvenile fantasies that encourage a lack of brain power. But I don’t want that at all. I want movies to surprise, stimulate, and shock audiences and their brains, and ideas. I want them to come out of a film as slightly different people than they were at the beginning. The joy with The Fisher King, for instance, was seeing people coming out of the theater walking [in] the wrong direction. And that’s because with the film, New York has been turned upside down for them. They are not the same people walking out of the film that they were walking into the film. It actually has physically affected them. That’s fantastic! I’ve heard one firsthand story about a screening of Brazil and one secondhand story. The secondhand one is about a lawyer who saw the film and then went back to his office and locked himself inside for three days. And the firsthand story is about a publicity lady at Universal who told

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me she went home after a screening and took a shower and started crying and couldn’t stop crying. It was the film finally catching up with her, she said. That to me is what I’m trying to do, to affect people that much. But I mean hopefully to affect them in a positive way or perhaps to touch upon a part of their soul that they never realized was there. ah: So you have made millions of people laugh, but what I am hearing is that you think comedy can be serious business. tg: Totally. I mean that’s the only reason for doing this! (laughs) No matter how silly we get, it’s always been serious business. At least I hope there is a serious intelligence underlying it anyway. ah: Many of your films have quick short clips from Marx Brothers films. In Twelve Monkeys, for instance, there’s a brief shot from Monkey Business. Does this mean that Groucho is deep in your soul? tg: Yes, the Marx Brothers have always been there, and throwing in those references was great for me. I want to constantly remind people that there is this big continuum, this great cinematic continuum that we are all a part of. Because movies are so much a part of us and have made us who we are, and one should never forget that. So I’ve always loved throwing in those references. After all the Marx Brothers taught a lot of us an awful lot. ah: Back to screenwriting approaches, you are not the usual or normal Hollywood kind of writer, aiming to turn out a 110-page script in correct format, style, and formula. Could you share something of your approach, however, any guidelines you do tend to follow when you write? Jean-Luc Godard used to say a lot of his screenwriting was writing on café napkins early in the morning before going on location to shoot. tg: Ah, god, a lot has to do with just sitting there, but I think there really are two stages of writing for me. There’s an early stage when I’m alone and I put down any idea that comes along. I literally have piles of scraps of paper everywhere. And so many of the ideas really are unrelated to each

Interview with Terry Gilliam / 157

other. I mean I see them as pieces of some large jigsaw puzzle that surely will come together if you work at it enough. So I can sit there for ages trying to incorporate them. And sometimes they are incorporated, and sometimes they change and become something else as they come in association with another idea. It is a kind of organic process for an idea to come together even if it isn’t fully developed. Then the next stage is to work on it with someone else. In fact I prefer to work with somebody else at certain stages. I’m not great with dialogue at any level, for instance; it’s my weakest part. But it’s just great fun throwing ideas back and forth, and slowly the thing evolves into whatever it is. But it never stops! We’re still writing when we’re editing the film. I think the last bit of screenwriting [is] when you do the last cut of the film or add the last sound effect or the last bit of music. It’s all screenwriting to me. I don’t believe you have a script and then you make a movie. It’s a constant process of writing. So when I’m doing a movie, the cowriter is usually around while we are shooting. On The Fisher King, for instance, I had Richard LeGuardie around and told him, “It’s your baby, and I’m just the foster parent hanging around for a while! So I want you to be around when it seems I am taking your baby down a road that you feel really uncomfortable with, you can shout at me. And then we can talk about it.” ah: A final question about the tragedy we have been living through after September 11 in New York and Washington, D.C. I’ve lived and worked as a screenwriter myself in the Balkans during these last decades of war and destruction. Yet I’m aware of what a deep sense of humor—tragic and bright—the filmmakers have in these countries. Do you feel we can begin to laugh again after September 11 and make films about it? tg: I’ve been laughing for the last week. It’s the way one deals with such tragedy and death. As far as I’m concerned, laughter is about the only defense against such pain. Joel Siegel, for instance, the film critic, has been sending me lots of emails about jokes coming out of New York since

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September 11. There you are. I think it is one of the greatest things humanity has: the ability to laugh in the face of tragedy. It’s healthy and essential. ah: And finally, do you have your tombstone worked out yet? That’s actually a question I do like to ask people frequently, particularly writers. tg: Absolutely, and I’ve had this line for several years now, since doing a talk show in Texas: “He giggled in awe!”

Fade Out Conclusions, New Beginnings

A RECAP AND SOME MORE ADVICE

I hope this collection has provided a map to help you navigate the landscape of global screenwriting. Before we wrap up, let’s return to the five commandments I put forth in the introduction: Drink locally. Travel and even live abroad from time to time. Write with a partner from another country. Increase your worldwide contacts and film knowledge by attending at least one international film festival a year. Use the Internet in ways that truly help you as a writer. Follow these five commandments, and write the script that your world travels urge you to write. Comedy, action, drama, or lyric romance, it doesn’t matter. You know that you have been influenced by people, books, films, and locations beyond those of your own native borders. And you have a passion to tell that story so that it can be shared on video, film, the Internet, television, or any combination of the foregoing. Write and enjoy! Furthermore, don’t overanalyze everything you do 159

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and write. That’s a sure way to dampen the worldwide carnivals at play in your mind, heart, and other locations! FADE IN and keep going. The Czech writer Milan Kundera writes, “It is through action that man steps forth from the repetitive universe of the everyday where each person resembles each other person; it is through action that he distinguishes himself from others and becomes an individual” (Kundera 23). Let screenwriting be your action, and that action will define your own global character, as well as the characters you write. In Casablanca Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is an American fish out of water, living a life of nonaction until Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), another fish out of water, comes back into his life in Casablanca, and they remember their whirlwind romance in a city, Paris, to which neither belonged. The memorable drama to this romance gone wrong comes when Rick does take action—as Kundera suggests, defining himself as someone who has finally been able to let go of past hurt—by arranging for Ilsa to escape the Nazis in Casablanca to return to Resistance work with her husband, an East European hero. This is global screenwriting and filmmaking indeed, even down to the director, Michael Curtiz, a Hungarian directing a French, German, American, and Swedish cast! Cinema has told, tells, and will continue to tell stories that embrace the world, and how dull it would be if we only had scripts from one town, one country, or one genre. Homer’s “Greek” tales were, after all, to a significant degree borrowed and reworked from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and others we may never know about. In the appendices I offer some practical suggestions for screenwriters everywhere to break into a wider world of global contacts, influences, and, yes, contracts, too. Appendix 1 offers a list of print resources for writers. Appendix 2 nudges you toward the fifth commandment above, listing a variety of Web sites pertinent to global screenwriting. Appendix 3 includes ideas for American writers wishing to reach out beyond the United States, and appendix 4 moves on to address those writers outside the States who wish to make American contacts. Realize, of course, that the division be-

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tween these two categories is only loosely drawn and that screenwriters everywhere might benefit from the approaches listed in both of these appendices. Appendix 5 offers advice for finding an agent, producer, or guardian angel, and appendix 6, my final offering to you, includes a recipe for a salmon feast to share with your cohorts from around the world. Let me also offer a few last words of advice. I am assuming that any writer’s interest in international screenwriting must stem at least in part from a love of films not from your country. In chapter 3 we looked briefly at some of the elements and traditions we admire in Hollywood writing. But on the practical side of beginning to break into global writing, I would encourage each of you to study the filmmakers you admire. What is it about Pedro Almodovar’s campy gender-bending sex farces that you enjoy? And does your homework make it clear that Almodovar himself is winking at Hollywood melodramas such as Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959)? Or does your appreciation of independent filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch lead you not only to study the script of a film such as Down by Law (1986) but also to research how “global” such a production turned out to be? Jarmusch, after all, used Wim Wenders’s cinematographer, Robby Muller, and the talents of Roberto Benigni many years before Benigni was a household name among American moviegoers, shooting in the countryside of Louisiana!

SCREENWRITERS AS INTERNATIONAL NOMADS

Screenwriters everywhere keep the carnival of travel and cross-influences alive. We are storytellers, and since the beginning of human history the gathering of folk to hear and share stories has been an important way to communicate, to transcend hardships, and to celebrate joy, love, friendship, and family. And I think it is important to embrace the spirit of nomads and indigenous people everywhere who can teach us how to learn from our travels, from the new people we meet, the old friendships renewed, and the sense of being ready to move on.

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The road, after all, leads on and on, and there are many “stories” about travels on roads that aren’t flat and about lives lived with people who have no peace and cannot find useful existences. The journey is the script of the struggles we all go through, no matter which country we were born in. A final worldwide-script nomadic story. As I ended a recent script seminar on the Greek islands, I finally succeeded in bringing a Hollywood writer, Herschel Weingrod, together with a young Greek writer/director/actor, Renos Haralambidis. Herschel’s scripts have been mentioned earlier, including Trading Places, Twins, and Space Jam. Renos has two features under his belt already, including his first film, No Budget Story, about a young Greek filmmaker with no money to make a film. We all met in one of my favorite Athenian tavernas, and the wine flowed. Somehow that carnivalesque nomadic spirit took hold, as it often does, and new friendships were formed. What I particularly enjoyed, however, was seeing two writers from very different countries and backgrounds discover that they had much in common in terms of their sense of humor and, well, appreciation for the absurdity of much that happens on the planet Earth! At one point during the evening Renos told the plot of a short film he wanted to make. Then he turned to Herschel and said, “Would you be my producer?” Herschel looked a bit worried. Suddenly his “time off ” in Greece was sounding a bit too much like taking a meeting on Sunset Boulevard. “Don’t worry,” said Renos with a smile. “You don’t have to do anything and you don’t have to raise money!” We all laughed and Herschel replied, “Not bad. I like being that kind of producer!” Retsina glasses clicked and the deal was on. “I can tell my friends I have an American producer,” beamed Renos. “And I can tell my friends I’m producing a Greek film!” shot back Herschel in the spirit of this global moment.

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The evening continued, but a brief flash in my mind reminded me that such nomadic experiences are among those I love best as a writer. And the point is that they would not occur if I were sitting at home watching cable TV or mowing the lawn! If I can be of help, let me know by postcard, phone, email, or smoke signal at: Andrew Horton Director of the Film and Video Studies Program and The Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Video Studies The University of Oklahoma 640 Parrington Oval #302 Norman, Oklahoma 73019 405.325.0792 fax 405.364.5493 email: [email protected] Web page: www.andyhorton.org

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Appendixes

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appendix 1

PRINT RESOURCES

Here I suggest a few books that I encourage all writers to add to their shelves. An absolute must for all global writers each year is Variety’s International Film Guide, edited by Peter Cowie. Each year a new volume comes out with the year in the title. What Cowie has offered the world for years now is a one-volume guide to what’s happening in film production and writing around the world. You can literally keep up with what films have been made and are in production in each country and find relevant addresses, fax numbers, and Web sites. A quick glance at “Norway,” for example, gives me twenty-six producers I can contact with my latest Oklahoma-Norwegian romantic comedy idea! And if I want to contact the Indonesian center for script development (Directorate for Film and Video Development), no problem. Variety’s International Film Guide has it all. But the book has more as well: it also lists festivals of the world, film schools, and useful new books. It’s hard to think of a better one-shot book for global-minded writers! Another useful work is The International Movie Industry, edited by Gorham Kindem. In-depth essays on the film industries of twenty countries make up this volume. Thus, if you have any interest in working in the German or Japanese or Hungarian film industry, this collection provides valuable background info, perspectives, and statistics. 167

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Max Adams’s The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide (New York: Warner Books, 2001) has the great subtitle of Or, Guerrilla Meeting Tactics and Other Acts of War: Do’s and Don’ts to Get Your Feature Screenplay Read, Sold, and Produced. This is an excellent and up-to-date volume covering everything from Who Buys Scripts and What a Pitch Is, and Isn’t, to Who Gets Read and Writer Speak vs. Mogul Speak. K. Callan’s The Script Is Finished, Now What Do I Do? (Studio City: Sweden Press, 1998), now in its second edition, covers the same territory but also lists dozens of agencies with a critique of each and contact info. John W. Cones’s 43 Ways to Finance Your Feature Film (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995) is not page-turning prose but does cover the ins and outs of how films are financed, a “must” for all screenwriters to understand even if they themselves are not trying to raise the funds. Part 4 includes foreign and thus global financing.

appendix 2

THE INTERNET AND SCREENWRITING FADEIN.COM

We all know that there are many other opportunities out there for those who are persistent and adventuresome in exploring the world of “www.” I would simply say that within the past several weeks I personally have received emails from writers in India, Saudi Arabia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and England who do not know me personally but are in touch because of screenwriting references and topics. Global and Internet are really synonymous! The following are some sites that I have found useful for writers: Start with Screentalk, which is both a Web page and a fine magazine, created, run, and edited by Eric Lilleor: www.screentalk.biz. Screentalk has various divisions, including one for downloading complete screenplays: www.screentalk.biz/moviescripts.htm. A single issue of the magazine (July-August 2001) contained articles on how screenwriters deal with the digital age; interviews with American, Dutch, Native American, and British screenwriters; coverage of Jean-Claude Carriere, who wrote for Luis Buñuel, as well as for projects such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being; craft essays that go beyond Hollywood three-act structure “rules”; and more! About: Screenwriting. The name says all. An impressive variety of info from essays by writers such as Linda Seger to lists of contests, workshops, and agents are here: http://screenwriting.about.com. 169

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Not only Oscar information, but a wealth of info on script lectures, the Academy research facilities, and other programs reside here: www.oscars.org. Chicago Screenwriters Network. Chicago has a very active screenwriting support scene, which can be accessed through this site: www.chicago screenwriters.org. Done Deal. This Web page is full of info on selling pitches, scripts, and books; it also has book reviews, a bookstore, and more: www.script sales.com. Drew’s Script-O-Rama. This is the premier spot for free scripts since 1995: www.script-o-rama.com. Euroscreenwriters. This is a database of more than 110 screenwriters, “professional and aspiring,” from twenty European countries. It also has a wealth of links to various European film- and script-related sites—everything from a “Writers Seeking Assignment” board to “Scripts for Sale” areas, a free newsletter, and other useful divisions: www.euroscreen writers.com. Hollywood Literary Sales: www.hollywoodlitsales.com. Hollywood Writers Network claims that hundreds of industry officials check daily on possible sales of films, scripts, books. Chat rooms, message boards, and more are also available: www.hollywoodnetwork.com. Internet Movie Database. The tried-and-true source of info on all films: www.imdb.com. Library of Congress Copyright Office. You can discover all you need to know about “copyrights” and more at this important source: http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright. Make a Scene 2001 (we assume the year will change each year!). This page is a temporary offshoot of Screenmentor.net and presents contestwinning scenes (five pages each) submitted by writers from around the world. It awards various prizes (books, consultations, etc.) but not money in the bank: www.screenmentor.net/make_a_scene_2001-%20intro.htm. Project Green Light. In 2000 this site was searching for a script for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to produce. It provides information on an annual

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screenplay contest and director contest. Winning screenplays are posted and can be read and downloaded: www.projectgreenlight.com. Reel Mind offers everything from personal media Web sites and script postings and coverage to storyboards, discussion forums, and film school and festival news: www.reelmind.com. Reel Substance. Those involved with character-centered scripts can get access to script-analysis services and groups (service is also available by phone: 1.800.494.5195): www.reelsubstance.com. The Screenwriters’ Utopia. Do check this one out! It’s an impressive site with lists of upcoming events, workshops, seminars, and lots of reviews of scripts, articles, links to other sites, and more: www.screenwriters utopia.com. Script Magazine has a helpful Web site for a wealth of information: www.scriptmag.com. Studio Script Sales promises to help make selling your script as easy as possible: www.studioscriptsales.com. Writers Guild of America East Script Registration: www.wgaeast.org/ cgi-bin/script_registration. Writers Guild of America West Intellectual Property Registry. This site is a “must” for info on registering your scripts, treatments, and ideas: www.wga.org/manual/registration.htm. Writers’ Script Network. Founded in 2000, this organization is associated with more than seven hundred industry pros to consider your script, which you can register for $20 for four months: www.writersscript network.com.

appendix 3

AMERICANS REACHING OUT

It is possible, of course, to be an American writer, influenced by foreign sources, and never leave the borders of the United States in person. That is certainly one level of being a writer for the world. Call this the Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond approach: let the world come to you! Thus the Coen brothers didn’t have to go to Greece to be inspired by an ancient Greek poet when they were writing O Brother, Where Art Thou? And many studio writers over the years have turned out scripts based on everyone from Charles Dickens and Tolstoy to Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan without ever setting foot in Russia, England, France, or beyond. On such a level the message is clear: let the world influence you through your readings, viewings of films in America, and, these days, your Internet chatting and browsing. But I am focusing here especially on how American writers can enjoy and profit from using their passports effectively to work on projects they would not have been able to write without having crossed those lines called national borders! Passport in hand, here we go: INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

Certainly just getting out of your own routine, bubble, and environment can awaken you to new influences, contacts, and, yes, visions. The 172

Americans Reaching Out / 173

compromise on my commandment to live at least a year abroad (which I do firmly stand by!) is to work some kind of regular travel abroad into your own schedule. And I don’t mean a cruise ship that docks at ports for several hours before sailing on. Underline travel, not tourist. The difference? Simple: not only being somewhere else, but making an effort to meet people, try local cuisine (and libations!), and getting off the regular tourist trail. It’s OK to visit the Acropolis in Athens, but spend some time in a local bar or real taverna away from the touristy part of the city. One example: Herschel Weingrod’s script credits include Trading Places, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, and Space Jam. But all of these were written with his writing partner, Tim Harris, whom he met years ago while they were both traveling through the Greek island of Crete. Conversations, meals, and friendship shared on Crete led not long after that to Herschel, who had just finished time at a film school in London (note: global experience!!), and Tim meeting up again and then having a shot at working up some projects together. The rest is history! But the lesson is clear: had they not each been traveling abroad, a wonderful and very fruitful writing partnership would not have been formed. So hit the road to global adventure! Advice? Travel light! As writers we always travel in our minds, but I really cannot think of anything that is more invigorating than allowing yourself to be a true traveler, experiencing new places and cultures for the first time. One of my books has this title: Life without a Zip Code: Travels of An American Family in Greece and New Zealand (New York: Smyrna Press, 2000). OVERSEAS SCRIPT WORKSHOPS AND PROGRAMS

One step above simply traveling on your own or with a small group is enrolling in a script/film workshop or seminar abroad. There are such “summer” programs and even longer workshops almost everywhere, from Australia to Israel and throughout Europe. Let me highlight a few examples for each area below, realizing that I am not trying to catalog all exist-

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ing possibilities. Rather I wish to suggest directions you can explore further on your own. Again, Web pages such as www.screentalk.biz are good sources for the latest opportunities for such overseas study possibilities. And many American universities, for instance, run special workshops abroad from time to time. One could, for instance, contact Phil Parker about his program in London and others that might currently be available in Great Britain (see his essay in part 2). Short-term Seminars Abroad I receive information constantly for one-week to six-week seminars everywhere from Israel to Prague in the Czech Republic. I won’t list any of them here because they change so frequently, but many are listed on some of the Web pages mentioned in appendix 2. Such seminars offer the best of both worlds—travel and foreign contact/study. Check, for instance, with some of the most reputed film schools, such as NYU, UCLA, and USC, to see what overseas programs they may have in any given summer. All three of these fine schools have professors from such countries as France, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and beyond. Thus, they are global from the word go. The New York Film Academy, a private profit-oriented company, offers programs at King’s College and Cambridge University in England, Spain, China, and through the French National Film School in Paris (contact the academy through www.nyfa.com). Another possibility for short- and long-term programs is the Global Film School, which you can reach via their Web page (www.globalfilmschool.com). Let me highlight one excellent opportunity, however. Consider the beautiful Adriatic coast of Croatia, near the Italian border, and you have a perfect location for a most fruitful summer program in screenwriting and filmmaking with a very international flavor. The Imaginary Academy (yes, that’s its real name!) is run by Rajko Grlic of the former Yugoslavia, a filmmaker who has received many awards and

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an endowed professor of film at Ohio University. Contact the school at www.imaginaryacademy.org. In 2001 I conducted a two-week “traveling” script workshop throughout Greece. At this seminar we had thirty-five participants from all over the United States, as well as from New Zealand and England. And those aboard included professionals who have made their own feature films, experienced screenwriters, and young students giving it their first shot. What many participants who were serious about screenwriting particularly enjoyed was that they were encouraged to send a script in weeks before the trip as a sample that I and the other faculty would read and discuss with the author during the travels. This kind of one-on-one “carnival of conferencing,” as I call it, gives a very organic flavor to both the critiques and the ongoing writing and development. To view the complete itinerary of this seminar, as well as information on my upcoming script seminars, please visit my Web site, www.andyhorton.org. Granted, most overseas programs are anchored in one location, such as London, Paris, or Prague. But I have always been a firm believer in combining actual travel and screenwriting, thus the design of my programs! Semester or Complete Degree/Certificate Programs A growing number of universities abroad offer degrees in media and film and even screenwriting. Depending on your particular interests, you might spend your year (or more!) abroad in such pursuits. If you are enrolled in an American university, you can, of course, often get credit for a semester or a year abroad. But you may choose to simply receive an overseas degree or certificate, depending on the program. Here are six possibilities to consider: FAMU in Prague is the school that has created some of the world’s best filmmakers, ranging from Milos Forman to Emir Kusturica. A series of courses is offered in English. Contact: FAMU, Film and Television Faculty, Academy of Performing Arts, Smetanovo nabr. 2, 11665. Prague 1, Czech Republic.

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The London International Film School offers a two-year diploma with a lot of hands-on production work along the way. You must already have a degree from a university or technical institute and submit a sample of your work. Contact: 24 Shelton St., London WC2H 9HP. Web site: www.lifs.org.uk. Magica (Maestro Europeo in Gestione di Impresa Cinematografica e Audiovisiva) is an Italian school based in Rome that offers classroom and online classes. Contact: Via Lucullo 7, int. 8, 00187 Rome, Italy. Fax: 39 06 420 10898. Email: [email protected]. Web page: www.audiovisual.org. Mauritis Binger Film Institut offers small groups of filmmakers intense training in developing and shooting feature films. The institute’s script workshops are well run, using European and American professors such as Ken Dancyger of NYU. Former students of mine who took the script course at Binger speak highly of the experience. Contact: Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 4–10, 1012 RZ Amsterdam, Netherlands. Email: [email protected]. Web site: www.mbi.ahk.nl. Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, has recently created the International Institute of Modern Letters, with a screenwriting track at the M.A. level (http://www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters). Run by the noted writer and poet Bill Manhire, this new script program, set up in part by folk who worked with Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings, promises to offer a lot of opportunities through individual meetings and small classes. York University, Toronto, Canada. A great city and a very good university, with screenwriting a possibility at the B.A. and M.F.A. (two years) levels. Contact: Film & Video Dept., Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada. FOREIGN INTERNSHIPS

Over the years I’ve become very proud of the way that foreign internships have turned into career-shaping experiences for those I know, especially students on their way to becoming industry professionals. For example: One of my Screenwriting on the Greek Islands participants years ago,

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Ellen, a Greek American recent graduate of Ithaca College, asked for an internship in Greece after the seminar. I helped her land an office internship with one of Greece’s leading directors, Theo Angelopoulos, while he was shooting Ulysses’ Gaze with Harvey Keitel in the Balkans. She did such a fine job that she was soon in demand on a variety of feature and short films, not to mention Greek commercials and more. It’s now six years later, and she has no plans to leave Greece! Another student, Sophia, followed my suggestion several years ago and went to New Zealand to do an internship with Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings. To work as an intern means, in most cases, that you are able to pay your own way and are willing to work for free in exchange for initial entry into the industry within which you hope to build a career. Sometimes, of course, there are “for pay” internships, and lucky are those who find these. But I am primarily speaking here of the “I’m willing to pay my own way” possibilities. How do you find these? That’s the rub! “Any way you can” is always the answer! Friends of friends, professionals met at film festivals or conferences, and, these days, through the Internet. My experience has been that professional film folk outside the United States are often impressed that an American would pay her/his own way to gain experience in filmmaking “abroad” and therefore go the extra mile to help such a person carry out such a wish. So choose your country, begin networking, and be ready to work in the film biz even if you have to keep a foreign phrase book close at hand as you order your coffee! INTERNATIONAL SCRIPT/FILM ORGANIZATIONS

It is a sign of the times that the worldwide spirit of this book can be seen in emerging organizations that are coming into existence to meet today’s international needs. The organizations are only a small part of what is clearly becoming a much larger movement globally. I have already mentioned Euroscreenwriters (www.euroscreenwriters.com). Do look at this site to see

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how many directions it can take you in terms of not only Europe but Eastern Europe as well. Let’s spotlight one organization, a very new entry in the field: Southeastern Europe Cinema Network To most of the world any mention of “the Balkans” conjures up images of a very troubled recent past, including the Bosnian and Kosovo wars. But the historical reality is that the countries of this region do share many cultural heritages and interests. Thus it was that a very positive step forward was taken by cinema representatives from Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Albania, Slovenia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Cyprus to meet on the Greek island of Hydra in 2000 and form the film organization listed above. The founding mission statement notes, “A multicultural society is the only realistic project for Europe in the 21st century.” In listing their goals the organization lists bilateral cooperation in production and distribution of film and other media projects, including coproductions and multinational cooperation. The group has already been fruitful in its first year as it has produced a guidebook, The South East Europe Cinema Network Film Professionals’ Guide, which gives useful information, including addresses and names of screenwriters, directors, producers, and studios, and summaries of the film industries in each country. The guidebook is published in Greece and available through the Greek Film Center, 10 Panepistimiou St., Athens, Greece 10671 (fax: 301.361.4336; phone: 301.363.4586). Consider how useful this one item can be for “global screenwriters.” Say you have a story that takes place partly or completely in one of the above countries and you would like to research or cowrite your script with a screenwriter from Bulgaria or Slovenia or Turkey. This organization and this guidebook (no Web site yet) are your key to getting in touch directly with screenwriters in each country. And finally this important area:

Americans Reaching Out / 179

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS

I emphasized this point in the introduction, and I stress it again here. Best is to head for a festival outside the United States. How to find the one you want? Check out the book I mentioned earlier, The Variety Guide to Film Festivals (edited by Steven Gaydos). Then you will know what you are in for at the Venice Film Festival in late August, the New Zealand Film Festival in July, or the Hong Kong Film Festival in April. But much of this information is also found in the yearly edition of Variety’s International Film Guide. Festivals combine travel, new films, new friends, and new contacts. That’s a hard combination to beat, and it all happens in a short time span. The bottom line at film festivals is not to be shy. You have no idea what chances you may have to work with a filmmaker from another country unless you introduce yourself, see his or her films, and start talking about stories you want to tell! But if you find it difficult to leave the States, try all the global folk you can easily meet at festivals such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Palm Springs, Chicago, and even the one I had a hand in starting, New Orleans.

appendix 4

HOOKING INTO HOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND FROM OVERSEAS

Much of what has been said above is true for those wishing to hook into screenwriting and filmmaking in the United States. Travel is a great way to begin to think of stories, especially “fish out of water” stories you may wish to write. And attending courses, doing internships, or showing up at film festivals could be your ticket to writing the next American independent feature film.

SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM AMERICAN SEMINARS AND COURSES

Whether you want short-term or long-term American courses, it is worth it to thumb through The American Film Institute Guide to College Courses in Film and Television (order from www.afionline.org). Most likely “New York” or “Los Angeles” will pop into your mind as the place to head if you are a serious screenwriter. As I mention below, there are many other locations you should also consider. But both coasts offer a bevy of short-term classes, especially at the “evening school” or “extension” level of not-forcredit courses. In New York look into NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, which has a Dramatic Writing Program (212.998.1940 or www.nyu.edu) and The New School University (www.newschool.edu) programs. In Los 180

Hooking into Hollywood and Beyond / 181

Angeles the UCLA extension program offers evening classes in everything from TV sitcom writing to advanced feature writing. Most universities also have offices that can help find you housing at a price you can afford. In the Los Angeles area two other institutions warrant your consideration: Loyola Marymount University has developed a splendid screenwriting program in the past few years (contact at www.lmu.edu). Likewise, Chapman University has come a long way in a short time to offer a worthy set of courses in screenwriting and film (contact at www.chapman.edu). Finally, in Rockport, Maine, there is an exciting and ongoing series of seminars at the International Film and Television Workshops (one- and twoweek courses). You can find information on these at www.theworkshops .com/filmworkshops or 1.877.577.7700. There’s much to be said, however, for screenwriters especially to consider other programs throughout the country. Here are four strong possibilities: The University of Texas at Austin has graduated many fine screenwriters and is located in a real “film city.” Contact: Department of Radio, TV, and Film, the University of Texas, Austin TX 78712. Columbia College in Chicago has gained a strong reputation over the past ten or so years. Add to this that you are in one of America’s most exciting cities, and you have a winner! Contact: www.colum.edu. Boston University’s Department of Film and Television puts you in the center of “old world” America, where new ideas spring forth constantly with a solid screenwriting opportunity for both film and television. Contact: www.bu.edu. Emerson College, also in Boston, has produced more than its share of luminaries, especially in the world of American television. The college offers a wide spectrum of media and screenwriting classes. Contact: www.emerson.edu. INTERNSHIPS

Few can resist someone who is willing to work for free! Again, as for Americans abroad, the secret is making contact and following through.

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You can check Web sites for such big companies as Disney and Warner Brothers, which do offer paid internships, including for screenwriting. These tend to be limited to American nationals, but special cases could, I assume, be made. Once more, if you attend an American film festival or take a class and begin to meet others, doors start to open. It seems almost everyone helps friends start off, whether it is by allowing them to sleep on their couch or floor while job hunting or by making introductions. Regular industry internships such as on studio feature films and network television shows are tough to come by, however. Unpaid internships are frowned upon in most of these productions for contractual reasons. But with the right connections, pouring coffee between takes and moving props around might be possible, as some of my students have found out. Remember that John Wayne was discovered while moving furniture on a set! Do think about cities other than Los Angeles or New York, as well. Television, documentary, and industrial filmmaking are all possible in a multitude of cities from Seattle to Miami. Thus a carnival of opportunities await you! Most folks I know who have simply shown up with a lot of enthusiasm, good humor, and patience have found internships. The job might be shooting weddings and baseball games rather than Mel Gibson’s or Julia Roberts’s latest film, but the experience and the contacts are what count! INDEPENDENT FILM/VIDEO PRODUCTION

The American independent film and video production world has been an exciting and constantly changing one for the past twenty years or so. How to make contacts? You can, once more, try the Internet by searching them out. But film festivals help a lot for this mission. Here are some of the key festivals: Sundance Film Festival Everyone knows about this January fest, which has been the festival to be discovered at ever since Steven Soderbergh and Sex, Lies, and Videotape premiered in 1989. Contact: www.sundance.org.

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Austin Film Festival October in Austin, Texas, becomes an exciting scene for Hollywood and independent writers and producers. What is particularly special is that they focus on the screenplay with the Heart of Film Screenplay Competition and Conference, with more than forty panels and workshops. Contact: www.austinfilmfestival.com. Independent Feature Film Market Usually held in September and always in New York, this is an excellent venue to meet filmmakers who are “doing their own thing” from all over the States and many other countries as well. For those from abroad this conference offers a most informative chance to catch on to what’s happening on the American independent front. Contact: www.ifp.org.

appendix 5

FINDING AN AGENT, PRODUCER, OR GUARDIAN ANGEL

This is the section many writers turn to first! Yes, they have already written a “great” script, and they want an agent to take it, read it, love it, and make a deal for at least six figures before the Christmas season begins. Nobody who has succeeded in Hollywood, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, or Budapest can offer a surefire way to get from “FADE OUT” to “the check is in the mail.” But I’ve purposely titled this final section to combine agent, producer, and guardian angel in the same ballpark. For the bottom line is that because the journey of each film from script to screen is so different, you need to be open to any possibility. This openness is even more important on a global market front. On one hand, I have already outlined many ways to make the contacts that can lead to fruitful cross-national opportunities: Film festivals Internships abroad Seminars and workshops abroad Internet networking script sites/opportunities Taking the last entry first, for instance, The Writers Script Network (www.writersscriptnetwork.com) claims to sell or option more than three 184

Agent, Producer, or Guardian Angel / 185

scripts a month. In terms of festivals, besides those already listed, writers everywhere can find the IFP Conference and Expo (Independent Filmmaking Professionals, www.ifp.org/market24), in New York at the end of each September, extremely useful for independent films screened, panels run, market possibilities set up. The 2002 conference, for instance, attracted folk not only from American sources, such as Sundance, Sony Pictures Classics, and Miramax, but also from France’s Canal +, Denmark’s TV2, and many others. But let us consider more closely agents, producers, and guardian angels. AGENTS

Hollywood runs a number of workshops/job fairs large and small at which agents appear and can be talked to directly. Such opportunities are invaluable for making direct contact. A new one worth paying attention to, for instance, is the West Hollywood Book Fair, which combines writers, screenwriters, producers, and more. It is cosponsored by the City of West Hollywood and the LA Weekly. The program varies, from “finding the right agent” to supporting international perspectives such as “From Russia with Love” and Hispanic panels such as “Mi cultura.” More information can be found at the West Hollywood Web site (www.weho.org) or by contacting literary agent Ken Sherman at [email protected]. Such direct contact with an agent is crucial given that simply sending the “out of the blue” query letter is definitely a hard sell unless you already come with a track record, which would mean someone is probably recommending you anyway. Thus, back to Catch-22. Again, get out there and meet the agents at such fests, fairs, conferences, and workshops listed throughout this book. Remember, too, the importance of placing in script contests such as those I have mentioned. I have had many former students and friends find agents because they placed or received an honorable mention in a script contest. Outside the United States there are definitely fewer people calling themselves “agents,” thus our second category of “producer.” Of course,

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the dream we have of an agent is that she or he will take us under her or his wings and go out into the cruel market world and connect us with exciting and well-paying productions. But it has been my experience that writing friends often change agents because they find that the agent is doing little for them and, in fact, has only been useful in negotiating a contract for a deal the writer herself/himself found. Of course, “golden” agents do exist who are out there fighting for their clients, but they tend to be the ones already connected to name talent, so the “fighting” to help an unknown writer get known and produced is not as difficult for them as it is for a less experienced agent. Which brings us to: PRODUCERS

Producers come in all sizes, descriptions, and functions. Obviously, many producers have real credits, whereas others want to break into film, television, or some other manifestation of the media and have contacts or organizational skills or maybe just sheer determination and an ability to work very hard. Again, like searching for an agent, and this applies for the United States as well as around the world, making the direct contact through all of the above meeting chances, from workshops to festivals, is key. I honestly cannot count how many deals I know of made by people meeting up and beginning to share ideas, scripts, projects (once you have registered and protected your material, of course!). And it is truly a global, multinational world for producers now because so many films—American and nonAmerican—have producers from several countries attached to a production. Remember, if it is television you are breaking into, producers are most often the writers as well. You are thus trying to get a spec script to them and their show, and in such a case you should check with each show’s policies on submissions of outside work. I do want to emphasize once more that you should always keep your

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eyes out for the chances that cannot be anticipated, planned for, or arranged but that, once they happen, you grab on to and follow through with. Surely Nia Vardalos had no idea that Tom Hanks would enjoy her one-act play about her Greek-American experiences so much that he would take a chance on helping to produce My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Clearly, when someone like Tom Hanks moves out of his usual orbit into that of producing, he is also a candidate for our final category below, for such an effort is one of love of the project more than it is “how much money will it make the first weekend?” But given the initial leap into making such a film, the producing team was very smart in figuring out their own limited-release approach, which made the most of word of mouth so that the film grew in sales each week, thus reversing the usual Hollywood blockbuster approach of losing audiences after the first “big” opening weekend. On a global level I am hearing more and more stories of people with money and energy who are stepping forward, wanting to get involved in media and film and become “producers” even if they have very little experience. Filmmakers from Russia to Greece and on to New Zealand and beyond have told me that these “new” producers are making a real difference in each country. So, writers, everyone is a potential producer, particularly if they love movies and have some cash to spend or invest! GUARDIAN ANGELS

There is no Guild West or East yet for guardian angels who suddenly or quietly appear in our lives to make a difference. In many ways the “new” producers I’ve just described are close to being members of this group, too. I’m speaking particularly of those who have no real background in filmmaking or television and who attach no strings—or, at least, very few—to help you take off and make your cinematic or media-related dreams come true. Like agents and producers, guardian angels come in many forms that only you may be lucky enough to recognize. For one former student it was

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a creative writing fellowship for several years at a major university that allowed her to write scripts that began to be noticed and got her contracts. Another was able to make his first film after receiving an unexpected “gift” of $500,000 from an individual not in the industry. We can all dream of such gifts, but the truth is that such “miracles” are in short supply. Joyful successes based on a carnival of happy opportunities and sincere talent are much more common. So remember that the secret of writers trying to break into the global market is no secret at all: write the best scripts you can, stay in touch with those in the field and business in the variety of ways I’ve outlined, and be open to those outside the “biz” who very well may become your guardian angels.

appendix 6

A RECIPE FOR WORLDWIDE SALMON OUT OF WATER

In my previous script books I’ve included screenwriting recipes in the closing pages, acknowledging the importance of good writing intersecting with fine food. For Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay I offered a screenwriter’s gumbo recipe, and for Laughing Out Loud: Writing the ComedyCentered Screenplay it was a comic screenwriter’s jambalaya. Clearly both dishes reflect my long association with life and cuisine in New Orleans. But for this volume I want to go even more global and emphasize that now-familiar plot structure—fish out of water!—with a seafood meal that crosses many national borders, assisted by a Greek winter salad. I credit my loving wife, Odette, with perfecting this dish over the years, drawing from salmon we’ve enjoyed in Oregon and New Zealand and numerous ports in between. A WORLDWIDE SCREENWRITERS’ SALMON FEAST

(serves six) Take roughly 2 lbs. of fresh boneless salmon filets. Wash and dry. Set the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 189

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Cover the bottom of a large glass baking dish with olive oil. Combine ¹⁄₃ cup of olive oil, two or three cloves of crushed garlic, and the juice of one freshly squeezed lemon. Place the salmon in the baking dish, and pour the garlic-lemon oil mixture over it, distributing the oil evenly. Sprinkle with a little salt, half a teaspoon of oregano, and half a teaspoon of thyme. Place uncovered in the oven for 15 minutes. Test to see if salmon is firm but not overcooked. It most likely will need five more minutes, but do not overcook. Prepare salad (see below) while the salmon is baking. Also recommended is couscous and/or steamed sweet potatoes to “counteract” the salmon/lemon flavors. Remove and serve! GREEK WINTER SALAD

(which is good any season!) Slice a head of cabbage into thin short strips. Put in a salad bowl. Take two bunches of spring onions, cut up finely, and add to the bowl. Crumble 4 ounces of feta cheese into the salad. Mix in half a teaspoon of thyme, a few pinches of salt, and half a finely cut green pepper. Add olive oil and balsamic vinegar to taste. Mix thoroughly and serve. Your fish out of water is ready to become a story of a memorable evening shared with friends and/or family! You choose the music and wine, but one further suggestion: this meal serves six, but please make sure at least two of your guests are not screenwriters! And what global film to watch before or after the meal? That’s not hard: Emir Kusturica’s Arizona Dream (1993), with Jerry Lewis and

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Johnny Depp. This Hollywood/French-backed Bosnian-Arizona story is really about Eskimo dreams and, yes, a fish that flies—out of its Arctic waters, through the skies to America, and, in the final shot, out of Jerry Lewis’s hands and once more into the sky. An Eskimo, Hollywood, French, Bosnian fish out of all waters!

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Henry, Sarah. “Danielle Captivates.” Weekly Auckland, June 5, 2000. Holden, Stephen. “Testing His Love, She Jumps into $1,500 Worth of Milk.” New York Times, Feb. 14, 2001. ———, ed. “The New York Times” on “The Sopranos.” New York: ibooks, 2000. Horton, Andrew. “Cinematic Makeovers and Cultural Border Crossings: Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies and Coppola’s Godfather and Godfather II.” In Play It Again, Sam: Retakes on Remakes, ed. Andrew Horton and Stuart McDougal. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. ———. “Global Comedy: A Fish Out of Water Story Every Time.” Screentalk, July/Aug. 2001, 16–18. ———. Laughing Out Loud: Writing the Comedy-Centered Screenplay. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. ———. Life without a Zip Code: Travels of an American Family in Greece and New Zealand. New York: Smyrna Press, 2000. ———. Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay. 2d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. ———, ed. Three More Screenplays by Preston Sturges. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Hoskins, Colin, Stuart McFadyen, and Adam Finn. Global Television and Film. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1997. James, Caryn. “Addicted to a Mob Family Potion.” In “The New York Times” on “The Sopranos,” ed. Stephen Holden, 23–31. New York: ibooks, 2000. ———. “The Sopranos: Brutally Honest.” New York Times, May 22, 2001, B1, B6. Kafka, Franz. The Diaries of Franz Kafka: 1914–1923. Ed. Max Brod. Trans. Martin Greenberg. 2 vols. New York: Schocken Books, 1949. Kindem, Gorham, ed. The International Movie Industry. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000. Kundera, Milan. The Art of the Novel. Trans. Linda Asher. New York: Grove, 1988. L’Engle, Madeleine. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. London: Wheaton, 2001. Lyman, Rick. “Crouching Memory, Hidden Heart.” New York Times, Mar. 9, 2001, B1, B27–28. Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin’s 2001 Movie and Video Guide. New York: New American Library, 2000. Marx, Groucho. Groucho and Me. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995. McBride, Joseph. “The Pathological Hero’s Conscience: Screenwriter Frank Nugent.” Written By, May 2001, 24–33.

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CONTRIBUTORS

andrea bosshard is a New Zealand screenwriter. Her script The Great Maiden’s Blush is in preproduction. terry gilliam was the “American” member of the Monty Python Flying Circus team that made the world laugh with films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Life of Brian. As a director he has explored a variety of carnivalesque and imaginative projects, including Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and The Fisher King. bernard gordon is a Hollywood screenwriter who was blacklisted in the 1950s for his political beliefs yet managed to write the scripts for films such as El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Thin Red Line, and The Day of the Triffids, among others. He has written about his experiences and the blacklist in his book, Hollywood Exile, or, How I Learned to Love the Blacklist: A Memoir (University of Texas Press). karen hall is a well-respected screenwriter and producer. She is currently working on Judging Amy and has credits for M*A*S*H (the television show), Northern Exposure, Moonlighting, Eight Is Enough, and Hill Street Blues. andrew horton is the Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Video Studies at the University of Oklahoma, an award-winning screenwriter, whose films include Brad Pitt’s first feature, Dark Side of the Sun, and Something in Between (directed and cowritten by Srdjan Karanovic). He is the author of eighteen books, including Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay and Laughing Out Loud: Writing the Comedy-Centered Screenplay (both published by the University of California Press). 197

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lew hunter developed the UCLA screenwriting department, heading it up for many years after working for Columbia, Lorimar, Paramount, Disney, NBC, ABC, and CBS as a writer, producer, and executive. His course Screenwriting 434 has turned out many of Hollywood’s most successful writers and has resulted in one of the best books on screenwriting, Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 434 (Penguin Putnam). rachid nougmanov is a Kazakh filmmaker/screenwriter who helped define the Soviet New Wave under “glasnost” in the late 1980s and early 1990s before the collapse of communism. His 1998 film The Needle starred the late Soviet rock star Tsoy and won many international awards. Nougmanov has been living in France since the mid-1990s. phil parker is one of the most highly rated teachers of screenwriting in the United Kingdom. He is currently course director of the master of arts program in screenwriting at the London Institute and author of The Art and Science of Screenwriting (Intellect Books). randy redroad-snapp is a half-Cherokee filmmaker whose first feature, The Doe Boy, was developed through the Sundance Institute. slobodan sijan is one of Yugoslavia’s most respected filmmakers. His films include the award-winning Who Is Singing Over There? (1980), How I Was Systematically Destroyed by Idiots (1983), and Strangler vs. Strangler (1984). He has taught in Belgrade and currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

INDEX

American scripts, 49, 150 American TV writing, 128–133 Amherst (Massachusetts), 16 Anderson, Lindsay, 38 Antarctic screenplays, 5 Antczak, Jerzy, 140 Antonioni, Michelangelo, 7, 135 The Apartment, 38 Aristophanes, 27, 60, 77, 81 Aristotle, 137 Arizona Dream, 190 The Art of War, 37 Athens (Greece), 27–28 Austin Film Festival, 183 Australia, 36, 46, 130, 173 Autumn in New York, 37 Avramovic, Aleksandar, 125

About: Screenwriting (http://screenwriting.about.com), 169 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 170 Adams, Julie, x Adams, Max, 30, 168 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 153 AFI (American Film Institute), 8 Africa, 139 African Americans, 6 Agamemnon, 77 Agents, 184–186 Alexander Nevsky, 135 Alien, 39 All about My Mother, 45 Allen, Woody, 17, 137 All in the Family, 73 Almodovar, Pedro, 161 Altman, Robert, 47 Amadeus, 38 Ambiguous endings, 118 Amélie, 80, 154 American Beauty, 31–34 The American Film Institute Guide to College Courses in Film and Television, 180

Bad Taste, 66 The Baker’s Wife, ix Bakhtin, Mikhail, 67 Balkans, 24, 66–68, 118–127, 157, 178 Balkan film, 80 Balkan magic realism, 68 Balkan screenwriters, 81

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Ball, Alan, 31–32 Balzac, Honoré de, 60 Bangkok (Thailand), 138 Bates, Alan, 75–77 Batman, 22 The Battle of Chile, 100 Battleship Potemkin, 100, 135 BBC, 107 Beaufoy, Simon, 46 Beautiful People, 9–10 The Beekeeper, 7 Before the Rain, 5 Beijing (China), 49 Being John Malkovich, 2 Belgrade (Serbia), 19–21, 123 Belmondo, Jean-Paul, 33–34 Benigni, Roberto, 46, 76, 81, 161 Bergman, Ingmar, 135 Berlin (Germany), 8 Berlin Alexanderplatz, 90 Bernstein, John, 135 Besson, Luc, 3 Bicycle Thief, 48, 135 The Big Lebowski, 59 Billy Elliot, 35–37, 138 Binoche, Juliette, 3 Birth of a Nation, 100 Bitorajac, Rene, 83 Bjork, 47 Black Cat, White Cat, 80 Black Hawk Down, 85 Blacklisted writers, x Bodrov, Sergei, 51 Bogart, Humphrey, 15, 160 Bordwell, David, 57 Bosnia, 22–23, 53, 79–85, 123 Bosnian Arizona stories, 191 Bosnian war, 4, 9–11, 24–25, 79–85 Boston University, 23, 181 Botes, Costa, 66 Boyd, Guy, 24

Brazil, 2, 49, 155 Breaking the Waves, 47 Breathless, 15–16 Bresson, Robert, 30, 52 Brontë, Emily, 2 British television, 106 Brooklyn College, 18, 21 Budapest (Hungary), 184 Buddha, 139 Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, 126 Buñuel, Luis, 169 Burnt by the Sun, 51–52 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 78 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 135 Cacoyannis, Michael, 17, 54, 75–79 CBS, 134 Ça ira mieux demain, 36 California studios, 47 Callan, K., 168 Callas, Maria, 136 Cambridge University, 174 Campbell, Russell, 6–8 Campion, Jane, 2, 66 Canadian screenwriters, 169 Canby, Vincent, 90–91 Canal +, 185 Cannes, 8, 55 Capote, Truman, 139 Carnivalesque, 67, 70 Carriere, Jean-Claude, 169 Cary, Joyce, 103 Casablanca, 5, 43, 160 Catsikeas, Ellen, 27 The Cell, 35 Central Station, 45, 48 Certami, Vincenzo, 81 Cervantes, Miguel, 60 Channel 4 (England), 71 Chapman University, 181 Charlie’s Angels, 35–37

Index / 201

Chase, David, 89–95 Chechens, 84 Cheers, 91 Chekhov, Anton, 51, 89 Chen, Chang, 56 Chernobyl, 136 Cherokee Nation, 95 Chicago, 17, 23 Chicago Film Festival, 179 Chicago Screenwriters Network (www.chicagoscreenwriters.org), 170 Chicken Run, 36, 106–107, 111 Children’s films, 48 China, 49, 56–57, 79, 131 Chinatown, 143–151 Chinese films, 35 Chocolat, 3, 140 Chopin, 140 Cinderella, 88 Cinema studies, 16 Classical Hollywood narrative, 2 Cleese, John, 2 Clueless, 22 Coen brothers, 53, 59–65, 81, 137, 172 Columbia College (Chicago), 181 Comic triumphs, 81 Comparative literature, 16 Confrontation, 149 The Conversation, 137 Copenhagen (Denmark), 135 Coppola, Francis Ford, 90, 137 Corliss, Richard, 56 Cormack, Danielle, 66 Corwin, Norman, 134 Cowie, Peter, 167 Coyote Ugly, 37 Crazy/Beautiful, 44 Crete (Greece), 77–79, 173 Cross-cultural comedy, 27 Cross-gender, 25

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 45, 53–59, 79, 131, 138, 140 Cucinotta, Maria Grazia, 50 Culver City (California), 39 Curiel, Carolyn, 87 Curtiz, Michael, 160 Czechoslovakia, ix, 16, 174 Dancer in the Dark, 47 Dancyger, Ken, 176 Danish Film Academy, 35 Dark Debts, 130 Dark Side of the Sun, 23–24 David, Filip, 122 The Day of the Triffids, x Dead Man Walking, 85 Delicatessen, 154 Denby, David, 86 Dench, Judi, 3 Denman, Alan, 138 Denmark, xii Depardieu, Gerard, 23 Depp, Johnny, 3, 191 De Sica, Vittorio, 48 Diary of a Country Priest, 52 Dickens, Charles, 60, 172 Dinosaur, 35–36 The Dish, 36 Disney (Walt Disney Company), 34, 182 Dizdar, Jasmin, 9–10 Djuric, Branko, 83 Documentary, 182 Documentary fairy tales, 68 The Doe Boy, 118–120 La Dolce Vita, 135 Donaldson, Roger, 66 Done Deal, 170 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 51 Double Indemnity, 38 Dougherty, Marion, 23 Doumanian, Jean, 17

202 / Index

Dovzhenko, Alexander, ix Down By Law, 161 Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, 80 Drew’s Script-O-Rama (www.script-o -rama.com) 170 Dubrovnik (Croatia), 23 Duck Soup, 124 Dukakis, Olympia, 23 Dunaway, Faye, 143 Dutch screenwriters, 169 Dutina, Todor, 123 DVDs, 151 Eastwood, Clint, 135 Eat Drink Man Woman, 55 Eisenstein, Sergei, ix Email, 8 Emerson College (Boston), 181 England, 4, 17, 46 Ensemble comedy, 87 Ensemble epics, 59 Erin Brockovich, 138 Eskimo dreams, 191 Eternity and a Day, 7 Euripides, 78 European Union MEDIA Program, 112 Euroscreenwriters (www.euroscreenwriters.com), 170, 177 The Exorcist, 36 The Face of a New Zealander, 98 FAMU Film School, 175 Farewell to Arms (Koprivica), 123 Fargo, 59, 81, 87 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 90 Fat, Chow Yun, 56 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 2, 153 Fellini, Federico, 135 Field, Syd, 141–151 15 Year Old: Gakko IV, 36

55 Days at Peking, xi Film festivals, 7–8 Film noir, 44 “Fish out of water” stories, 5, 6 The Fisher King, 2, 153, 155 Fitzgerald, Barry, 39 Five-act paradigm, 141–151 Fonda, Bridget, 3 Ford, John, 20, 39–44 Forgotten Silver, 66 Forman, Milos, 38, 175 Forrest Gump, 137 Fort Apache, 39 43 Ways to Finance Your Feature Film, 168 Four Hundred Blows, 135 Four Weddings and a Funeral, 86 The Fragrance of Wild Flowers, 15 France, 33, 130 Frederickson, Gray, 5 French films/scripts, ix, 36 French National Film School, 174 Frequency, 36 Friends, 91 The Full Monty, 46, 138 Gaghan, Stephen, 71–72 Gaydos, Steven, 8 George Lucas in Love, 9 Georgia (USA), 16 German films, ix, 167 German television, 2, 22 Gibson, Mel, 182 Gilbert and Sullivan, 172 Gilliam, Terry, 1, 7, 152–158 Gilmore, Geoffrey, 3 The Girl in Black, 75 Global Film School, 174 Global storytelling, 132 Gobi Desert, 56 Godard, Jean-Luc, 15, 32–33, 55, 156 The Godfather, 5, 82, 89, 90

Index / 203

Goldman, William, 138 Goldmember, 85 Goodbye Pork Pie, 66 Grand Illusion, ix The Great Maiden’s Blush, 100–102 Greece, xii, 1, 5, 16–17, 26, 28, 116, 160, 172, 174, 187 Greek cinema, 75 Greek Film Center, 178 Greek tragedy, 75, 78 Green Card, 23 Grierson, John, 98–99 The Grinch, 35–37, 48 Grlic, Rajko, 138, 174 Guardian angels, 184, 187–188 Guerra, Tonino, 7 Hail the Conquering Hero, 62 Halanon, Penti, 138 Hallström, Lasse, 3 Hamilton College, 16 Hamlet, 58 Hanks, Tom, 86, 187 Hanna-Barbera, 134 Hanxiang, Li, 55 Haralambidis, Renos, 162 Harden, Marcia Gay, 46 Harlan County USA, 100 Harris, Tim, 173 HBO, 89 Heavenly Creatures, 66 Helfgott, David, 46 Hemdale, Inc., 122 He Who Must Die, 135 Hicks, Scott, 46 Hill, George Roy, 19 Hitchcock, Alfred, 61 Hollywood, ix, x, 19–21, 71–72, 79, 153–158, 180–183 Hollywood filmmaking, xi, xii, 13, 15, 30–52, 141, 161

Hollywood genres, 4 Hollywood storytelling/screenwriting, 2, 26, 28 Hollywood writers, 3 Hollywood Writers Network, 170 Homer, 13, 53, 59–65, 76, 160 Hong Kong (China), 3, 9, 56, 184 Hopkins, Anthony, 137 Horton, Andrew, xiii, 99–100, 118 Horton, Odette, 20, 189 Houston (Texas), 23 Howard’s End, 45 Hudson, Rock, x Hungarian film, 167 Hungary, 5, 16, 36, 174 Hunter, Holly, 2 Hunter, Pamela 136 The Iliad, 65 I’ll Fly Away, 89, 129 Imaginary Academy (Croatia), 138, 174 I Married a Monster from Outer Space, 79 Imitation of Life, 161 Independent Feature Film Market, 183, 185 Independent Film/Video Production, 182–183 International Film and Television Workshops (Rockport, Maine), 181 India, 5 Indochine, 45 The International Movie Industry, 167 Internet, 3, 137, 169–170, 184 Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), 47, 170 Internships, 181–182 In the Mood for Love, 36 Intrigue, 145, 146 Iowa (USA), 131

204 / Index

Iran, 49 Italian American gangsters, 92 Italian neorealism, 38 Italy, 5 Ithaca College, 177 Jackson, Peter, 66, 176, 177 Jacobs, Robert Nelson, 3 James, Caryn, 91 Japan, 36, 167 Japanese screenplays, 30 Jarmusch, Jim, 16 Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, 154 Joyce, James, 61 Judging Amy, 129 Jules and Jim, 20 Jung, Tsai Kuo, 55–57 Kalem, T. K., 137 Kamen, Mark, 3 Kansas (USA), 9 Karanovic, Srdjan, 19–22, 25–26, 68 Karate Kid, 3 Karina, Anna, 33 Kazakhstan, 4, 95 Kazantzakis, Nikos, 76–78 Keaton, Buster, 42 Keitel, Harvey, 2, 177 Kerouac, Jack, 139 Kevin and Perry Go Large, 111 Kiarostami, Abbas, 49 Kindem, Gorham, 167 Kindergarten Cop, 173 Kiss Me Stupid, 38 Kiss of the Dragon, 3 Kolya, 81 Koprivica, Stevan, 123 Korea, 5 Kosovo (Serbia), 80 Krakatoa, East of Java, xii Kundera, Milan, 160

Kung fu, 55 Kurosawa, Akira, 135 Kusturica, Emir, 19, 80, 82, 190 The Lady Eve, 62 Lake, Veronica, 62 Landscape in the Mist, 7 Laptop computers, 15, 129 Laughing Out Loud: Writing the ComedyCentered Screenplay, 27, 189 The Lawless Breed, x Lazopoulos, Lakis, 27 Learning Channel, 128 Lee, Ang, 55–57 LeGuardie, Richard, 157 Lemmon, Jack, 43 L’Engle, Madeleine, 133 Lethal Weapon 4, 3 Lewis, Jerry, 190 Li, Jet, 3 Library of Congress Copyright Office (http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright), 170 Lien, Yu Shu, 57 Life Is Beautiful, 46, 58, 76, 81 Life Without a Zipcode, 173 Lilleor, Eric, 169 Ling, Wang Hui, 55–56 The Lion King, 138 Ljubljana (Slovenia), 19 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 106, 111 London (England), 9, 173, 175, 184 London International Film School, 176 London Screenwriters Workshop, 138 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, 135 Lone Star, 45 Los Angeles (California), 29, 37, 131, 180 Louisiana (USA), 23 Love Eternal, 55

Index / 205

Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), 198 Lucas, George, 37 Lu, Wang Du, 55 Lysistrata, 27, 77 M, ix, 135 MacDowell, Andie, 23 Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of), 4 MacGowran, Jack, 39 Mackey, Amanda, 23 MAGICA (Maestro Europeo in Gestione di Impresa Cinematografica e Audiovisiva), 176 Makavejev, Dusan, 19 Make a Joyful Noise, 6–8 Maltin, Leonard, 50 Manchevski, Milcho, 4 A Man Escaped, 52 Manet, Edouard, 136 Manhire, Bill, 176 Manus, Will, 17 Maoris, 67–70, 102 Marchand, Nancy, 92 Mardi Gras, 18, 27 Markovic, Goran, 19 Marx Brothers, 156 M*A*S*H, 22, 129 The Matrix, 56 Maupassant, Guy de, 136 McCrea, Joel, 62 McKee, Robert, 101, 109 McLaglen, Victor, 39 Meet the Parents, 35 Memento, 41 Metropolis, ix Mexico, 71–75, 99 Miami (Florida), 182 Mihic, Goran, 124 Milosevic, Slobodan, 119–122

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, 62 Miramax, 37, 185 Mission Impossible, 22 Mississippi Masala, 87 Molière, 136 Montenegro, 123 Monty Python, 1, 7, 152–155 Monty Python Speaks!, 1, 153 Moonlighting, 129 Moore, Simon, 71–72 Moscow (Russia), 8 Mouchette, 52 Mr. Deeds, 85 MTV, 42, 48 Muhammad, 139 Muller, Robby, 161 Muriel’s Wedding, 86 Murphy, Geoff, 66 My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 54, 85–89, 187 My Darling Clementine, 20 My Life as a Dog, 3 Mythic narrative, 117 Nair, Mira, 87 Naked Screenwriting: Twenty Academy Award Winning Screenwriters Bare Their Art, Soul, Craft, and Secrets, 140 Nanook of the North, 100, 135 Narby, Leon, 67 Nashville, 47 Native Americans, xiii Native American screenwriting, 113–118, 169 NATO, 125–127 NBC, 134 Nebraska (USA), 134, 140 Never on Sunday, 135 New Jersey (USA), 92 New Orleans (Louisiana), 6, 18, 26–27, 189 New Orleans Film Festival, 179

206 / Index

New School University (New York), 17, 180 New York City (New York), ix, 18, 20, 152–158, 180 New Yorker, 86 New York Film Academy, 174 New York Times, 41, 55, 87, 89 New Zealand, xiii, 2, 4–8, 66–70, 95–105, 169, 174, 187 New Zealand film comedy, 69 New Zealand Film Commission, 6, 101 New Zealand literature, 100 Nicholson, Jack, 143 Night Mail, 135 Nikolic, Bozidar, 23 No Budget Story, 162 Noiret, Philippe, 50 Nolan, Christopher, 41 No Man’s Land, 79–85 Norman, Marc, 7 Northern Exposure, 89, 129 Norwegian screenplays, 1 Not One Less, 49 Notting Hill, 106 Nougmanov, Rachid, 47, 141 Nugent, Frank, 39, 44 Nussbaum, Joe, 9 The Nutty Professor, 7 NYU Film Program (Tisch School of the Arts), 55, 174, 180 O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 55, 59–65, 172 Odyssey, 60–65, 76 The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, 76 Oedipus, 77 O’Hara, Maureen, 39 Ohio University, 175 Once Were Warriors, 66, 102 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 38 102 Dalmatians, 37 Oscars, 54, 72–73, 80

Pakistan, 71–72 Palm Beach Story, 62 Palm Springs Film Festival, 174 Panahi, Jafar, 49 Papas, Irene, 77 Paramount, x Paris Review, 133 Parker, Phil, 174 Paskaljevic, Goran, 19 Payne, Alexander, 137 Peckinpah, Sam, 65 Pei, Cheng Pei, 56 Peking Opera, 58 Penis costumes, 18 People, 24 Petria’s Wreath, 19 Petrovic, Alexksandar, 19 Phoenix, River, 24 Pi, 41 The Piano, 2, 66, 102 Picaresque structure, 64 Pickpocket, 52 Pitt, Brad, 22–25 Plastic Jesus, 122 Poetics (Aristotle), 139 Pokemon, 48 Pollak, Cheryl, 24 Pollock, 45–46 Poor Little Hamsters, 124 Port of Shadows, ix Il Postino, 5, 50, 138 Potter, Dennis, 90 Prague (Czech Republic), 174 Preston, Gaylene, 66 The Price of Milk, 66–70 Producers, 184–188 Project Green Light, 170 Pudd’nhead Wilson, 17 Pudovkin, Vsevolod, ix Pula Film Festival (Yugoslavia), 21 Pulp Fiction, 9, 39, 41, 44, 91

Index / 207

The Quiet Man, 39–45 Quinn, Anthony, 54, 75–79 Rabiger, Michael, 105 Radford, Michael, 50 Ragtime, 38 Raising Arizona, 59 Random House, 130–131 Ray, Nicholas, xi, 135 Rebel Without a Cause, xi Red Planet, 36 Reel Mind, 171 Reindeer Games, 35 Reisz, Karel, 38 Remains of the Day, 137 Renoir, Jean, ix Ristic, Jovan, 125 Robbins, Tim, 74 Roberts, Julia, 182 The Rockford Files, 89 Le Roi danse, 36 Romantic comedy, 42 Rome (Italy), 131 Romeo and Juliet, 55 Roth, Eric, 137 Ruby and Rata, 66 Rukoff, Moens, 135 Run Lola Run, 91 Rush, Geoffrey, 46 Russell, Mary Doria, 130 Russia, 5–6, 26–27, 51 Salamon, Julie, 72 Salle, Walter, 48 Salt of the Earth, 100 San Fernando Valley, 39 San Francisco Film Festival, 179 Sarajevo (Bosnia), 19, 139 Sardi, Jan, 46 Saturday Night Live, 17, 127 Saudi Arabia, 169

Sauvenet, Alban, 138 Saving Private Ryan, 138 Scary Movie, 7 Schamus, James, 55–57 Schindler’s List, 49 Schule, 35 Screenplay, 141–145 Screentalk, 169 The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver, 142 The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide, 168 The Screenwriter’s Utopia (www.screenwritersutopia.com)171 Script, 171 Script chat groups, 8 The Searchers, 39 Seattle (Washington), 182 Secret Ingredient, 122 Seger, Linda, 101, 169 Seinfeld, 91 Seinfeld, Jerry, 27 Sense and Sensibility, 55 September 11, 10, 157–158 Serbia, 21, 125–126 Serbian television, 122 Seven Chances, 42 Seven Days to Live, 35 The Seven Year Itch, 38 Sex, Lies, and Videotape, 182 Shakespeare in Love, 138 Shakespeare, William, 58, 172 Sherman, Ken, 185 She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 39 Shine, 46 Shin Jingnaki Tatakai, 36 Sidran, Abdulah, 123 Siegel, Joel, 157 Sinclair, Harry, 66–70 The Singing Detective, 90 Sirk, Douglas, 161 Six Stages of a Dead Man, 27 Skopje (Macedonia), 19

208 / Index

Skouras, Spyros, 76 Slobodna Bosna, 119 Slovenia, 178 Small Town Crooks, 35 Smash Palace, 66 Smith, Gregory White, 46 Smith, Jeanne Hoffman, 163 Snatch, 37 Socrates, 81 Soderbergh, Steven, 71–75, 182 Some Like It Hot, 38, 43, 88 Something in Between, 19–21, 90 Song of Ceylon, 135 Sony Pictures Classics, 45, 185 Sophocles, 89 The Sopranos, 54, 89–92 Sorbonne, 136 South Africa, 9, 30 Southeastern Europe Cinema Network, 178 Sovagovic, Filip, 83 Soviet film, ix Space Cowboys, 36 Space Jam, 162, 173 Spain, x, 1 The Spanish Prisoner, 45 The Sparrows, 131 Spice World, 111 Spielberg, Steven, 37, 49 The Spitting Image, 127 Stalin, Joseph, 51 Stein, Gertrude, 139 Stella, 75 Stojanovic, Lazar, 122 Stone, Oliver, 137 Stoppard, Tom, 7 Storytelling In The New Hollywood, 39 La Strada, 100 Stuffed Zucchini, 126 Sturges, Preston, 59–65

Sullivan’s Travels, 62–65 Sundance Film Festival, 2, 118, 182, 185 The Suspended Step of the Stork, 7 Sverak, Zdenek, 81 Switzerland, 5 Symposium (Plato), 81 Taiwan, 55 Tamahouri, Lee, 66 The Taming of the Shrew, 41 Tanovic, Danis, 54, 79–85 Tarantino, Quentin 44 Tarkovski, Andrei, 7 Taste of Cherry, 49 Telluride Film Festival, 8 Texas (USA), 158 That Sporting Life,135 Thelma and Louise, 24 Theodorakis, Mikis, 76 Thompson, Emma, 137 Thompson, Kristin, 2, 39 Thoreau, Henry David, 172 Through a Glass Darkly, 135 Through the Olive Trees, 49 Time, 137 Time Bandits, 2, 153 Time for Drunken Horses, A, 2 Time of the Gypsies, 66–70, 80, 82 Titanic, 42 Tito, Josip Broz, 25, 119 Titus, 36 Tokyo (Japan), 8 Tolstoy, Leo, 51, 133 Towne, Robert, 149 Toy Story, 48 Trading Places, 162, 173 Traffic, 71–75, 138 Troisi, Massimo, 50 Truffaut, François, 20, 135 Turkey, 178

Index / 209

Twain, Mark, 17 Twelve Monkeys, 2, 153 Twentieth Century Fox, 54, 75 Twins, 162, 173 Tykwer, Tom, 48 UCLA, 139–140, 174, 181 UK Film Council, 107 UK television, 108 Ulysses’ Gaze, 7, 177 Unbreakable, 36 Underground, 68, 80 United Kingdom, 37, 106–112 United Nations (UN), 83–85 United States, 4, 13, 120, 132, 152, 172, 177, 180–183 Universal Studios, x, 155 University of Belgrade, 23 University of Illinois, 16, 55 University of New Orleans, 18, 23 University of Oklahoma, 95 Upside Down, 23 Urban, Karl, 66 Urban Legends: Final Cut, 37 USC, 174 The Usual Suspects, 41 Utu, 66 Vanguard Films, 100, 103 Vardalos, Nia, 54, 86–89, 187 Variety, 21, 35 The Variety Guide to Film Festivals, 8, 179 Variety’s International Film Guide, 167, 179 Velázquez, Diego, 33–34 Vertical Limit, 36, 99 Victoria University (New Zealand), 6, 103, 176 Vietnam War, 16 Vimon, Zhang, 49 Virginia (USA), 16, 131

Virgina, 25–26 Vitezovic, Milovan, 125 von Trier, Lars, 47 Wagon Master, 39 Waking Ned Devine, 138 Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, 133 Walsh, Maurice, 39 Warner Brothers, 23, 182 Washington, D.C. (USA), 157 Wayne, John, 39–43, 182 The Way of the Gun, 36 The Wedding Banquet, 55 We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, 2 Weingrod, Herschel, 162, 173 Weir, Peter, 23 Wesleyan University, 23 West Hollywood Book Fair, 185 We Were Soldiers, 85 What Lies Beneath, 36–37 When Father Was Away on Business, 68 The White Balloon, 2, 49 Who Is Singing over There?, 119 The Wild Bunch, 65 Wilder, Billy, 38, 138, 140 Wild Strawberries, 135 Witness, 5 Women Who Become Men, 25 The World According to Garp, 19 World War II, 25 Writers Guild of America, 134, 171 Writers’ Script Network, 171, 184 Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay, 99, 118, 189 York University (Canada), 176 Young, Antonia, 25 Yugoslavia, 4, 19–20, 22, 26, 81, 174 Yugoslav magic realism, 66

210 / Index

Yugoslav Ministry of Culture, 120 Yugoslav People’s Army, 123 Z, 135 Zagreb (Croatia), 123

Zafranovic, Lordan, 19 Zimbabwe, 138 Zorba the Greek, 17, 75–79 Zulu, Ben, 138 Zwick, Joel, 86